


The Holy Sea

by bansheesquad (deathwailart)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dreams, F/F, Gen, Original Mythology, Pirates, Sailing, thieves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2020-06-30 08:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19849444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/bansheesquad
Summary: Where the sea is holy and truly alive, where pirates are considered preachers on the waves, and where one young thief wants something more, something big and stumbles into palace life and a place in the queensguard.





	1. Chapter 1

Castileos by night was seldom a still or quiet place, indeed it was only in the full heat of the mid-afternoon when all sensible people retreated indoors to sleep it off or relax quietly that the noise and bustle faded away to a calm. No, by night even in the small hours such as this when the moon hung full in the sky, a great bright pearl glittering cool and remote attended by stars bright as sea lights off the back of the greatest of all leviathans who rose from the depths to inspect the surface and retreat from time to time, as was their custom, Castileos was still a busy place. Still plenty out and about at revelry or plying their trade. As was the case of one small figure clambering over the rooftops of the merchants district; softer than a shadow, footsteps muffled over the shingle tiles that in the daylight caught the sun in all their golds and silvers, tonight they were dark as everything else and the figure, a young woman, thanked all about her that it hadn't rained to render them more treacherous than they already were. Not that she hadn't had close calls but no one spent years in her line of work and up high above what streets Castileos possessed without learning how to navigate them though that wasn't to say she hadn't had close calls tonight, her heart in her mouth, but that only got the blood pumping, had her ready for the main event. And now she was where she wanted to be.  
  
Prowling closer to the edge, she peered down, a few errant curls escaping the braid about her head as she peered down to the narrow street below. Here it was better lit – it was the merchants district after all, not where she, Araceli Bonaventura y Castell – than most places by tall slender lamps giving off soft pale blue light from the sea, though it wasn't so well-lit as where the nobles called home but where was? Probably the inner most heart of the central island where the palace was but Araceli had never had reason to set eyes on it herself so she couldn't say for certain. Watching the guards for a few minutes, she nodded in satisfaction and continued on. They seldom bothered to look up, she knew that, but it never hurt just to keep an eye and the less noise she made, the less she risked disturbing a loose tile or losing her footing, the less chance there was that they'd have any reason to lift their eyes her way. It was funny, sometimes, to think back on her early years when all she'd ever thought about was what if she sent a tile clattering down below to shatter into the street; guards did look up, she'd learnt, but more often than not nothing came of it because tiles fell and if there was nothing to see, who was going to climb all the way up to the rooftop or traipse through the house and up through every floor and into the loft to investigate?  
  
Still, every step that sounded louder than she liked always echoed in her head, worse and more sickening than her pistols misfiring at the crucial moment.   
  
(She touched them where they sat at either hip, as if to reassure herself that yes, there they were. Both rapiers too, slung at her left hip, cool silver hilts under her bare fingertips.)  
  
At least there were rarely guards up on the rooftops here, unlike the nobles district, and if that was down to the belief that they were safe despite the thefts that Araceli knew they suffered since they had staff, and gates, and isolation from the common folk after all or if no one wanted to be up here and most merchants didn't have the coin to hire their own private guard force to patrol she didn't know. And they probably weren't quite as paranoid as the nobles since they'd all had to make their money. From casual observation. She'd never really quite worked out how to drop any of it into casual conversation to ask with people she knew day to day for fear that they'd _know_. Somehow. It never seemed worth the risk to satiate her curiosity when this was her living after all. Oh there were plenty of tall buildings about this deep into the main islands where you'd be spotted if you weren't careful, and if a neighbour or a guard inside spotted you then they'd usually sound the alarm and barge over. Or they should.  
  
Politics was ever at work when it came to that sort of thing, private rivalries, pettiness and spite.  
  
(The building she'd had to jump from to get to here had a hatch for easy access to the roof. To her that spoke more of getting guards up there faster than any sort of architect or what have you.)  
  
She waited for two guards to catch up to one another, their voices muffled but animated, a break in the midst of a shift if she was any judge from all the way up here and she fancied that she was after so long in this line of work even at her young age. Suitably distracted by one another, Araceli took her chance to swing down and over the edge of the roof, all of it delicately and tastefully scalloped – it wouldn't do to be gaudy and have the neighbours gossip even if it must have cost a small fortune – to the small balcony, a ubiquitous feature of Castileos along with the glass floors or panels or hatches of every building that took new arrivals and visitors too long to get used to. No matter your wealth or status, it was always thought that everyone should be able to sit out by the sea air as they should on a ship, an open window and an open door even if it was only the smallest of spaces jutting out. This one was almost obscene in her books. A decent table and chair probably sat out here most days for refreshments or whatever it was that people with money did in their free time but they were convenient for thieves such as herself to get in and out because either they had locks on them if you wanted to stroll in through a door or you could balance on the railings as she did and boost yourself up more comfortably to the nearest window.  
  
Not that it was all smooth sailing. She miscalculated slightly, only just managing to catch the lip of the window ledge above and to the left of the balcony with one hand, straining the shoulder as her breath went out of her with a grunt. She couldn't look down to see if anyone had heard. It was about getting herself up since her feet were dead weight, dangling beneath her now, and she didn't have long before she lost her grip; beneath her were the waterways that ran through the whole island the way other lands would have streets and alleys and paths but they weren't so very wide, barely enough space for two gondolas to pass either direction without scraping paint and only if the gondolier was skilled.   
  
If she fell it would be a painful, probably bloody, mess.  
  
"Come on," she whispered to herself. "Almost." And it was enough to have her moving and taking a deep breath.  
  
Feet braced on the wall to support herself, elbows up, she managed to get her other hand up to make a start on the lock, the picks cold from the night air. This was always the worst moment in her mind. Not leaving home and making her way to wherever she had to be. Not the creeping around the home or business of a stranger. Not even dealing with guards or worse if it came to that. But this one quiet moment where she found herself in an undignified position or precarious perch even without an audience, a whole string of curses caught behind her teeth yet unable to utter a single sound. All she could manage when the lock did give under her ministrations was a soft triumphant huff of breath as she eased the window open with her right hand, sliding inside, sure as a seal over the rocks with the lock pick in her mouth. Already she groped for objects that might be littering the windowsill. Everyone liked to have little keepsakes where they could look at them as they gazed out the window but they were an occupational hazard when you fumbled about in the dark, eyes still adjusting, trying to grab for anything that might be knocked over and draw attention to an intruder in the house.   
  
It might be late but it wasn't so late that the occupants might not still be up working or enjoying themselves.   
  
Leaving the window open about a fingers breadth should she retrace her steps when she was done to ease the way – you couldn't rely on any amount of luck – she took a deep steadying breath, a smile stealing over her face. Here was the thing the that spoke to some deep part of her nestled in her heart, in her bones, something that had woken in her in her childhood and despite the late hour Araceli found herself more awake than at the height of the day, aware of where she was and what she was doing: a house filled with strangers (hopefully sleeping) and possibly with guards, certainly patrolling outside, and her creeping about inside to find and take what she wanted without being caught, vanishing without a trace with her prizes in her hot little hands, her blood singing with the thrill of it all.  
  
Thanks to the plans she'd looked over before arriving she knew where she needed to go, more or less, and there was only ever so much variety with these sorts of houses because there was a limited imagination half the time and limited space to do many modifications on them. Araceli had spent plenty of time in homes such as these – little of it invited of course – to be reasonably confident that she knew where she was going with minimal fuss. A bedroom might be where a study was in the last one instead of say, finding the dining room on the second floor. There wouldn't be surprises like ballrooms though that night in the nobles district had certainly been memorable and once everyone involved was a little less paranoid, it'd be worth the return trip because it had been a _bounty_. A girl could have retired on that night.  
  
But that was then and she was busy now, sticking close to the walls as she slipped out of a room seemed to exist to store cases and odds and ends because yes, of course, if you were wealthy you had rooms in your home just to store junk in instead of parting with it. And you even had the coin to have too much in the first place.  
  
Sticking close to the walls in a dark home where all the lights were out, Araceli slid her feet rather than lifting them; floorboards weren't a thing to be trusted no matter where you went. At the first corner she flattened herself back to peer up and down. Study then library. Educated guesses for what she was after tonight, no sense to go poking into bedrooms where people might be asleep or awake. Despite the dark, she could easily make out the tapestries and paintings up on the walls that if she hadn't been alone with her only way out either by the rooftops or, if she managed it, strolling through the streets that she'd have taken. They were all worth a hefty sum but getting them out without damaging them was tricky enough, getting them back to a fence who could pass them along on your own was even harder. Maybe she'd swing back another time, loop in a few others if they were interested.  
  
Or maybe she wouldn't. She'd worked on her own since she'd cut her teeth. There was a reason for that.  
  
Tonight she'd come here with a plan in mind but the mind wandered or the heart did or both, and this was the sort of home that had she been invited inside in the light of day with the freedom to roam as she pleased that she knew she would've enjoyed taking her fill of. Wandering slowly, touching what she didn't dare now, fingertips tracing empty air instead over a lighthouse gleaming as a spike of gold and silver against the ravages of a terrible storm, waves threatening to engulf it. A single ship almost lost on the canvas so small was it above an ocean below packed and teaming with life down to the darkest depths. Dozens of depictions of mermaids. She wondered what her neighbours would think of them, having a better eye for it, or if her grandfather Cirino's signature might be on any of them. It had almost shamed her into turning tail the first time she saw one of his pieces where she'd been robbing.  
  
Almost.  
  
After all, she did know his work when she was close enough to it and when he fingers crept that way; her grandfather would probably understand, and he'd already been paid besides but she hadn't quite been able to shake that he'd been watching her the whole time. That he'd known the next time they'd seen one another though he'd said nothing and neither had she.   
  
At the first door she came to she stopped, turning to press an ear against it, breath held. Nothing more than the usual nightly noises of a house settling around her, the lapping of the waterways from outside, no indication that anyone was inside the room. Dropping down into a crouch, she glanced about again then slid a pick into the lock, warm from where she'd worn it against her skin, carefully twisting her right wrist to find the sweet spot that would release it even as it bent that wrist an angle that pulled tight, a flash of not pain exactly but something more than discomfort. She bit her lip and kept working, though her eyes did glance to where her dark blue sleeve had ridden up to expose her brown skin and the raised line of the scar that was causing the problem all these years later; if she'd known at thirteen that a bone breaking through the skin would bother her now—  
  
She'd probably not have done anything different, honestly. Araceli could admit that in the privacy of her own head breaking and entering.  
  
The door gave, left hand catching it before it could swing open on well-oiled hinges that had never even thought to squeak or protest and that was one advantage of working in the homes of the wealthy; everything in working order, at least where eyes could see it. Slipping the lock picks away for the moment to free up her hands, she peeked around the door, just in case. Her other hand cupped the rapiers at her hip to keep them from rattling though she worried that her own heart pounding madly in her chest would alert anyone who might be in the room to an intruder.   
  
No one was inside on first glance and after letting herself in she closed the door to give herself privacy and allow for some sort of noise should anyone come interrupt her in what was the library. According to the plans she'd looked at back at The Orlop where thieves and fences of any worth in Castileos went to do business this wasn't the largest room in the house, indeed even in the low light filtering in from windows cut in the porthole style, covered in thin drapes she could see that, with the rows and rows of floor to ceiling shelves only succeeding in making it smaller again. A room struggling to fit all that it contained. Half of her hoped it'd have everything she wanted to find as she took a longer look and saw that the shelves were crammed fit to burst with not only books as one might expect of a library but odds and ends, trinkets, curios, anything that would reasonably – and perhaps not – be displayed on a library shelf. The other half that had drawn her this far wanted a chance to keep exploring. This room though? This room was crowded enough and from the desk beneath the window she lifted a lure light lantern, down near to the dregs, though not so done that a good shake didn't have that sickly yellow glow allowing her to see a little better as she started to make her way down the shelves past jars of preserved specimens, some of creatures she'd only ever seen in books, dredged up from the darkest of depths with eyes many times larger than the rest of them, with rows upon rows of needles for teeth.  
  
She hurried past those.  
  
"Right. Right." She whispered the words to herself on the way past a stuffed oarfish, the light glinting off the scales, something she'd only ever seen washed up on the sands before. "Get in. Find it. Get out. Go home. Hurry up."  
  
Not always so simple as that but it comforted her to say it surrounded by these creatures she hadn't reckoned on. They should have been alive. Should have been swimming. Should have been given back to the sea. Why anyone would keep them dead and in jars or on plinths was beyond her. Maybe there were naturalists who needed to study them this way but this was a merchant who didn't even do them the honour (was it an honour? The thought squirmed in her belly, pulled her skin tight, a squeamish thing to even skate near the edge of) of displaying them to all so they could at least be seen for the wonders that they'd been in life. No, they were sequestered away. She moved past them. They weren't much better than the room filled with foreign insects from Ebeos – or was it Estene, she wasn't so good with insects – that had almost sent her hurtling right back out the door again. At least that had made for a good story over drinks back when the work was done but this…  
  
She'd toss an offering into the waters on the way home if she could. Make sure it was a good one.  
  
For good measure, she ran through the breathing drills her fencing instructor Marjani had instilled in her years ago. She'd never asked her thoughts on using them for something like this though she doubted that she'd mind; piracy and thieving were two sides of the same coin after all, the den where the thieves and fences worked telling that story well and true.  
  
On the matter of fences—her thoughts circled to Ernesto, his clear instruction as to what he wanted from this particular home since tonight Araceli wasn't just picking up whatever she thought was valuable or whatever she cared to, a more usual routine, though she did enough of this sort of work to be comfortable with it. Thieving was thieving at the end of the day, the thrill still same at least for her, an extra challenge to even find what had been requested: a matched set of daggers with seahorse hilts (impractical but decorative, no doubt that was where the value lay), a slender volume of poetry deemed illicit in Zimevur that must have been smuggled into Castileos since rumour had it – according to Ernesto's sources – that all the manuscripts had been destroyed though the smuggling hadn't been done by any Castileans that he could track down. What was deemed illicit in Zimevur certainly sounded intriguing, maybe she'd have the time or the chance to flip through it before she had to hand it over to him so she could find out or it'd eat at her. Something that wasn't a ledger, maps or logbooks? Something that might set the heart racing? She had to take the chance to thumb through it. Finally there was a signet ring, a standard sort of fare that she suspected would more than likely be in a bedroom rather than a study but whatever bedroom it'd be in was a bridge she'd cross when she came to it. There were worse nights than tonight.   
  
Jar held aloft, she made her way down the shelves and didn't stop to dawdle even if she dearly wanted. There wasn't anything off about the place, no churning in her stomach or sense of wrongness that she never had a name for that showed itself as a tugging deep in the heart of her but maybe it was the eyes. Probably the eyes. What thief wanted the chance of any sort of audience? Dragging her fingers along the spines of the books to help her read better in the dark she ended up in the third row before she found the volume, bound in red leather, a crack down the spine to speak to it having been read and she couldn't resist, balancing the lantern in the crook of her elbow to flip through the pages.  
  
Even a skim read didn't disappoint in the dark, a hastily bitten lip all the kept her from laughing and waking anyone who might be asleep on the same floor. Fortunately it was a slim book, something she could tuck into an inside pocket of her coat where it pressed against her ribs once she buttoned it up again but it wasn't anything too uncomfortable for now, more secure than it'd be anywhere else and it left her hands free. It didn't take long after that to find the daggers being used as bookends of all things.  
  
Not that they'd be useful in any sort of fight with the balance completely off when she lifted them, ostentatious hilts inlaid with mother of pearl that she tucked into her belt, smoothing the coat out once again. She doubted they'd even be good as throwing knives. Maybe some sort of gift that you got when you were wealthy that did end up sat on the shelf so as not to offend should the person who gifted them ever stop by and wonder about them.   
  
Doubting she'd find the ring on the desk and needing to return the lantern to where she'd left it, she decided it was at least worth her while to stop and search the desk, a cluttered mess where she imagined someone had been hard at work for part of the day. A map took up a portion of it, weighed down in the corners, a route mapped out in twine and pins – something was being planned, business or it could be pleasure, but if she had to bet on it she'd go with business, in a merchant's home as it was, even if it was in the library and not the study. Everyone had to do some sort of research before they moved into the planning or it might be the perfect place to think surrounded by their terrible ugly trophies. Hunting through the drawers revealed nothing of consequence that she needed tonight at least and she set the lamp down where she'd found it, one last look at the map, a reminder of her father and his own voyages so painful that it tugged at her.  
  
From nowhere the thought surfaced: _I could do that_ , rising up as flotsam and she not ready – or willing – to claim it. It wasn't as if she'd never done it before and she tugged one string, watched it vibrate before falling still.  
  
Another time, she had things to do and time slipping swiftly between her fingers though she committed as much as she could to memory. Shipping lanes. Estene and Castileos so lumber. Possibly. A safe enough bet given the owner of the house from what she'd learnt on her prowls prior to heading out. Certainly reason to come back once they recovered from the thefts (if they did, there were some who didn't seem to mind and that galled her, and not entirely for the flaunting of their wealth but for the way it rubbed her raw, as if her skills had gone unnoticed, as if she'd never left her mark although that was the _point_ for a thief, or a thief like her).   
  
With reluctance for all that she couldn't take with her, she slipped out the door soundless as she'd entered, flat back against the wall to take another glance, another listen. Nothing and no one. Only the thick carpets now that her eyes were more adjusted to take note of them, a pattern rippling through them that reminded her of kelp forests swaying in the current. The wallpaper matched too. Or the pattern did. Still too dark for her to make out the colours but this was bordering on the nobles homes that she'd been in, either the sort to flaunt new wealth or the kind who'd earned it and weren't afraid to display it. It still boggled the mind, as her feet made not a sound – if there was one good thing to be said about carpets it was that at least – to have a carpet that couldn't be any further from the sea made up to look like one on all your floors in the house instead of bare boards and planks fashioned from salvaged ships. Such things were probably beneath them.  
  
Not that she should complain but she pulled a face in the dark that no one was there to see.  
  
It was a matter of guessing where to go now, a crippling indecision that had her hovering as she tried to decide where a signet ring would most likely be and where that room would be in this house too. Somewhere this large would probably (definitely) have several bedrooms. Maybe a dressing room or two. Some of the rooms would comfortable fit her whole flat inside with room to spare; what you did with all that space she wasn't sure but if the chance ever presented itself to find out, Araceli certainly wouldn't turn it down.  
  
 _Is it theft? To take from them? The ones who never give back? Who take and hold on and pass down and amongst their own?_ She wondered as she crept down the hallway all the way to the stairs at the end, towards the light that beckoned from below. The kitchens would be down there, there might even be someone still at work at this hour to get a start on the breakfast – Araceli was up for the strange hours, she knew how long things like a loaf of bread actually took to make, especially if someone expected it hot and ready at the table – because you took the jobs you could, or you got paid for it, or both. Had to pay the rent and put food on the table after all.  
  
She turned back. Might as well check the bedrooms while she was up here, save a little time and if it turned out to be in one of them then she could head back the way she'd come, not risk running into anyone downstairs. If they were there.   
  
The first bedroom door opened to a room mercifully empty but silver enough that it blinded. A grand dresser took up a whole corner of the room; with the curtains open and the thin drapes she could see it was white, a long centre drawer under the table, three on the right side. Not many tables elsewhere but a large wardrobe. More of a woman's room once she set to peeking through everything, in fact it was like her mother's room, or any room at the Sea's Embrace. There were only so many places a signet ring could be and who said it would belong to a man? Or that the man would be the one in charge? But this room didn't seem nearly used enough and the contents were makeup, brushes, older jewellery that wasn't even all that valuable by now and the wardrobe included dresses that had gone out of fashion long ago. Araceli crept carefully out of the room without disturbing anything further.  
  
Some things you left as a derelict.  
  
Time was ticking away as the second bedroom proved to have nothing worthwhile in it save a sleeping lump under the blanket who snuffled away but otherwise didn't move at all as she peered around. It was a child's room, toys scattered about, clothes kicked half-heartedly under the bed, plenty of trip hazards for her on the way in and out. The third room had another sleeper, a young woman with a brown arm hanging over the edge of the bed, turning over so her dark curls splayed over the pale pillow when the breeze blew in through the open window as Araceli carefully inched open a dresser drawer, fingers poking through a disorganised heap of papers, pens, an alarming cluster of trinkets that both hands jerked out to grab for when they all slid forward in at once, threatening to hit the front of the drawer right as the woman turned. Heart pounding, Araceli took a few deep breaths in and out. No ring. Only the drawer to be replaced. To straighten herself out and creep away.   
  
She turned again in the doorway. Stared just long enough to make sure there was no glint in the low light of an open eye.   
  
The last bedroom was the master bedroom, across the hall from the other two which made a sort of sense to her (four bedrooms in a merchant house with one that had gone unused for years was utterly excessive when she barely had one in her tiny flat) that she crept inside. Two people was always more trouble. Twice the risk of being caught. Two sets of eyes and only one Araceli. There was a clock in the room, all beaten gold hands – not that she looked them – and an abalone face mounted on the wall, a framed painting of the maid in the moon hung above the bed with the waves reaching for her, tall sweeping wardrobes, pretty bedside tables on either side of the bed with books and spectacles, their lure light lamps covered so as not to keep them awake. This was more promising.   
  
The man was closer, mostly on his front as she checked the table, checked the drawers, easing them out with almost painful slowness. Every unexpected sound had her wincing. He was too close. The woman was right there and she couldn't see her face. What if she woke up and said nothing? If Araceli was too absorbed in what she was doing and didn't hear her getting out of bed? Or if she shouted for the guards as he grabbed for her? When that search turned up nothing she had to fight the curse and the urge to slam the last drawer shut back down, creeping around as low to the floor back to the other side of the bed to check there. Nothing on top though the illicit poetry Araceli had taken was the woman's since the volume she'd been reading was Castilean, something Araceli had read herself. A woman of taste. A prettier copy though, leather-bound, not a faded paperback. Her fingers _itched_ to have it but it was the hand on the pillow that caught Araceli's eye.  
  
There was the ring.  
  
Gold, some engraving Araceli couldn't make out in the dark but definitely the ring and it was _on her hand_ and why hadn't she thought of that? That something so important would still be worn?   
  
She could do this. She'd done harder things than slip the ring off the finger of a sleeping woman. This was a merchant, what did a merchant have to be afraid of? Sleeping in a guarded home, tucked deep inside the island away from the common elements that they thought of as undesirable, nothing for them to be afraid of as she lifted herself up and off her knees. Bracing one thigh against the bed as much as she dared, one hand on the table to steady herself she touched the ring, holding her breath. Not a sound. She watched the slack face of the woman, olive skin, lines about the mouth and eyes smoothed out, hints of grey at the temples. One chance to do this and get herself gone and she knew where the ring was, could feel it coming loose as she eased it up to the first knuckle. The woman murmured, the man – Araceli wouldn't assume him to be her husband – muttering something under his breath until she went quiet again. Up and over. Then the slide to the second knuckle.  
  
The woman's eyes opened, blinking as she rose from sleep.   
  
Araceli froze then remembered herself, tugging the ring up and over her finger into her hand.  
  
"What—" The woman's voice was thick with sleep, rough and confused as she tried to squint at Araceli who backed away out of reach. "Thief! Wake up! Thief! Thief!"  
  
The man struggled out of the bedclothes, Araceli grinning as she cursed and ran out the door, not daring to look behind her as they both started to swear and shout, the young woman's door opening as she peered out into the hallway, almost colliding with Araceli as she barrelled back towards where she'd come from.  
  
"Sorry!" She called because she'd just robbed them, she wouldn't rub salt in the wounds by being rude on the way out the door.  
  
Or window. She could make it. There were footsteps behind her, footsteps thundering downstairs too as whoever was downstairs made their way up but Araceli was faster than them, charging for the window, lungs burning—  
  
Her foot collided with the windowsill on the way, a searing pain she forced herself to push aside as she leapt to the balcony, hauling herself up to the rooftop the way she'd come in. The guards below were going to the house, investigating the noise and she took the opportunity afforded to her to begin the trip home, prizes in her pockets and a grin on her face as Castileos slept on about her, the best thief in the game if she did say so herself.


	2. Chapter 2

Castileos was beginning to rise by the time Araceli made it home and to bed though her own building slept on, the benefits to living with artists who kept their own hours as they saw fit, some of the stragglers arriving from their own late nights as she did, quiet pleasantries exchanged prior to heading all the way upstairs and to bed where she almost tripped over a small dark shape who bolted over to her, clattering into her knees.

"Lux!" Beaming, she dropped into a crouch once the door was locked behind her, arms around the wriggling bundle of fur that tried licking her face as she shushed him before he could start geckering; the last thing she or her neighbours needed was an ecstatic fox greeting in the early hours when they were trying to sleep. "Yes, yes I'm home, I'm home I happy to see you too my darling, did you miss me? Please let me up and I'll feed you I know you're fading away to a shadow, oh yes how terrible I fed you a whole dinner and left you to sleep in—" she glanced past him to her favourite chair (the only chair) by the closed balcony door with half the cushions knocked on the floor, the thin pale blanket trailing off the arm from where it had been neatly folded. "In my _good_ chair. What a terrible person I am to abandon you. Anchovies to make it up to you?"

Lux yipped his assent, something Araceli was helpless to stop as she unbuttoned her coat, removing her weapons belt to toss it on the kitchen counter as a dark grey blur danced about her feet, nails skittering over the floorboards, creaking as she fetched him his anchovies from the cupboard as she snagged one for herself. It wasn't time for something more, she could wait until after she'd slept to go get a late breakfast as she left Lux to it, scratching him behind the ears as he shot towards the saucer the instant it was set before him, snagging her weapons; she'd leave him to it, her bed beckoned and more beside, the weight in her coat reminding her of what she still had to safely stow for tonight when she could seek out Ernesto.

Her flat, such as it was, was a small affair and so it only took a few steps to cross from the open kitchen and living room into her bedroom, leaving the door open as she hung her weapons belt over the foot of the bed where she could grab it quickly if needed. Before she allowed herself a seat, she strode over and opened the window, mindful of the array of tiny model ships and their cousins in bottles that littered it, seashells she'd picked up and dried out urchin tests amidst all the other clutter. Some had been gifts. Some she'd bought. The mobile that hung in her window of driftwood, clattering softly in the breeze that floated through from the harbour had been made by a neighbour two doors down not long after she'd moved in as part of a trade, something she loved dearly though all of it was handy to alert her should anyone attempt what she had before she'd come home tonight. Standing by the window didn't afford her much of a view, the homes here crowded as they were, leaning closer together for all the years ago they'd been built and with the battering from the tide but they endeared themselves to her that way, as if they were neighbours too, sharing the gossip, leaning in to chatter about the prices at the dockside markets. This was for the common folk for all that nearly all the goods in Castileos had to come in not too far away but was it her place to ask questions?

Maybe. But not now. Not when her eyes drooped even leaning halfway out the window so she turned sharply on her heels to see Lux watching her from the door, licking his chops with the satisfaction that only a fox could muster. Or so she supposed. She'd never met another in the flesh, not in Castileos at least though cats and dogs did likewise so animals had to know something about enjoying a meal with even more relish than any person Araceli had ever met. 

With a yawn that he echoed, she toed off her tall boots, grabbing hold of the dresser when she almost tripped out of them, tossing the little folding knife tucked inside the left onto the bed for the moment then set the boots by the foot next to where her weapons hung, Lux watching her every move.

"Did you enjoy your early breakfast?" She asked, struggling to keep herself awake now as she shrugged off the coat that hadn't seemed nearly so heavy when she'd put it on this evening—no, yesterday evening, the clocks had rolled on while she worked hadn't they? Lux said nothing, of course, instead lying down in the doorway with his chin on his paws to better watch her with those big black eyes. "Those were fresh anchovies from Gláucia, only the best for my boy." 

The coat she took off with care, one of the most expensive things that she owned for all that it didn't look it at first glance, a plain navy blue thing, deep pockets a girl could stuff her hands and her breakfast in, her flask too for what self-respecting Castilean went about without a flask, cut at the mid-thigh but a thief's coat shouldn't draw attention. Or that was her thinking. No, it was hidden away inside as she laid it flat to extract her prizes from earlier in the night in the merchant's home to lay them out on the bed next to it that the costs came into it: the hidden pockets she'd had sewn inside that were all the extra sort of adjustments you paid for especially if you didn't want anyone to look at it and realise, then there was making sure she'd be able to run and climb in it, and of course she'd paid extra for silence because a good coat was hard to find and she didn't want just anyone asking after where she came by it. You never knew where that would lead. Book, ring, daggers next to her own knife, she thought long and hard about just leaving the coat where it lay on the end of the bed but she couldn't, even as tired as she was she still got up, put it away. She had to get undressed anyway which she did, clothes clean enough to go a little longer before wash day and likewise hung up neatly alongside in the wardrobe that took up much of the wall by the door, barely any space between it and the dresser, an old shirt that had once been her father's good enough for bed. 

(She'd deal with that hole in the shoulder eventually; it was only for bed, who else would see her in it anyway?)

Glancing between the dresser, the wardrobe and the floor, exhaustion won the day and she eased up one of the floorboards to stash her stolen goods below until the evening, tucking them away safely amidst other parts of her careful stash. The knife she tucked under the pillow, just to be safe, her hair she combed through with her fingers; _now_ she could fall into bed, planting herself face down in the pillow with a long groan. She ignored the pattering of paws on the floorboards. Ignored the snuffling by the hand that dangled off the bed, even ignored the cold wet nose that nudged at her hand that she almost snatched away but that would be a tell, wouldn't it? It wasn't until the paws were up on the mattress that she turned her head to stare at Lux, his tail wagging hopefully.

"Would you like to join me?" She asked as if it weren't obvious by the coiled tension in his body. "Oh of course, you've got the manners to wait to be invited first, how well brought up you were. Come on." 

As soon as the words left her mouth and her other hand patted the bed, up he hopped, the bed dipping only a little under his weight as he circled the customary dozen times as she rolled over onto her back, starfishing out so she didn't suffocate, Lux curled up in a ball at her side once he was done with his nose beneath his tail. By the time she woke up he'd be asleep on her chest but for now this was comfortable, her fingers sliding into his soft fur to feel the rise of and fall of his little body beneath her palm as he settled back to the business of sleeping after a brief interruption for her coming home and eating to his earlier sleeping while she'd been out without him. 

"Do you think we should go see mama tomorrow?" She asked, voice somewhere above a whisper as her eyes closed to the brightening room. "You can get spoiled silly, I can splash around in a big fancy bath. I'll make us both something delicious for dinner so no accusations are slung my way about being a terrible daughter who only arrives if she wants something then we can go get paid."

Lux had no answer. He was fast asleep but she liked to think that he'd approve, certainly of the dinner part and the cooking of the dinner, and of course seeing her mother where he was as welcome a guest as she. Besides, it was a solid plan for the night even if she'd need to see what she had in for dinner, would have to wake herself up in enough time to get the cooking done but she knew her mother's schedule by heart now and there weren't any upcoming events that'd have her too busy to see her only daughter in the first place. Capping it off with getting paid by Ernesto, seeing friends, having a drink, maybe even getting more tips for another job? Well it'd be a profitable day as Araceli measured hers. With Lux's heat, steady breathing, the lapping waves and crying gulls outside lulling her to sleep, Araceli allowed herself to sleep the sleep of the well-satisfied.

* * *

It hurt to push Lux off her chest when Araceli woke hours later, the worst of the heat over but the air in her small bedroom still and heavy with it, not helped at all by a small furry creature who'd tucked his head right beneath her chin, sweat sticking her shirt to her when she moved.

"Lux," she mumbled, tongue thick in her mouth, "Lux come on, off, time to get up." 

Both her shoulders popped once she sat up, the fox sliding down into her lap with a disgruntled whine though only one eye opened and she was forced to evict him when he made no effort to move under his own power though she couldn't resist scratching under his chin, the sleepy body leaning into her, nor could she stop herself from dropping a kiss on his head as she pushed herself up and out of bed, padding barefoot to grab a change of clothes to wash up and get ready to cook. Though not before opening up the door to the balcony, propping it open with a chair; cooking would only make it hotter than it already was. By the time she'd washed up in her tiny toilet, hair pinned out of her face and with an apron about her, Lux was trotting out of the bedroom, yawning as if he hadn't slept longer than she had.

Araceli assumed it was how he kept his youthful vigour, she'd met dogs half his age already gone grey about the muzzle though Lux had naturally had that colouring half the year so it was impossible to tell with him.

"Temptation calls you from your slumber!" He yipped in response, ears pricked forward as he wound his way about her bare ankles. "Well you can think again, good sir, this isn't for you so listen to me, Lux," she bent down to be closer to eye level, her most serious face on and Lux to his credit did indeed plant himself down to sit as only a gentleman amongst foxes might with both front paws set neatly by his chest, "no thieving."

He ruined it by scratching his ear with a back paw and yawning before she'd stood up again and Araceli sighed heavily, nudging him out of the way with her foot to start hauling out the biggest pot up and onto the stove before sorting through the rest of the cupboards. Curry, she'd decided between getting up and to the kitchen, and that required fishing the sardines out of the salt water tank (that'd need cleaned and refreshed, tonight after she got back from seeing Ernesto), then the rest of the cupboards for the garlic, green chilli, ginger wasn't so fresh as she'd like but it was expensive this time of year, tomatoes that had seen better days for the same reason, and tamarind water that had been a gift from her father last time he'd been in port, pressed into the palm of her hand with his broad grin and a wink. A Zimevur staple that her people had taken to as soon as they'd tried it, brought to Castilean ports, Castilean ships, and of course when they'd first sailed all the way to Zimevur in the first place. A surprise or a treat and once she had everything assembled – a sardine tossed to Lux so that he could snatch it out of the air with his white teeth with the same speed as a breaching great white would an unfortunate seal or sea lion – she left it to cook as it would, stirring as need as she puttered around with a book in hand to pass the empty hours until finally it was done. 

It was only a matter of plating up enough for her and her mother (and Lux though that was always a given), wiping off the worst of the sweat she could since there was a bath awaiting at her mother's, changing, and retrieving her stash from the night before. Venturing out into the hall once she was ready to go, the cool air took her by surprise and she sagged back in her open doorway, eyes closed as she sighed in relief.

"Everything all right?" An amused voice, belonging to a young man she knew forced her eyes open; Marco awaited her, dark beard and hair streaked through with yellow and orange paint.

"Yes, yes, good day to you – there's fish curry and rice for anyone who wants it, I'll leave it downstairs before I leave."

"I thought I could smell dinner wafting from under your door Miss Bonaventura y Castell, patron to us poor souls without."

"Marco," she smiled warmly at him as Lux shoved his way out to investigate, "there will be a day where you live in a gilded flat on the wages of the noble family. Promise to remember me? My curries. My paella. My end of month stew. Promise to remember them when you paint the lords and ladies, their children, their pets. The ugly things in their gaudy houses." It wasn't necessary to flutter her eyelashes and pretend to swoon backwards as the doorjamb dug into the small of her back, still more than a little sweaty, both hands pressed to her chest, but Marco laugh a good deep laugh and his eyes crinkled so it was worth it. 

"Always, Araceli, always." Solemnly as he could, Marco bowed his head though his mouth threatened to smile at any moment as he bent to scratch Lux behind the ears. "I will salt their bland meals with the tears I shed for leaving behind all I must from this life."

They both laughed together until it turned to breathless giggles, Araceli bidding him farewell and good luck on whatever project he was busy with so she could haul the pot downstairs, Lux following her all the way there and back up for what she'd set aside for dinner, locking up behind them both with a smile. 

"Shall we?" She asked him as he trotted jauntily at her side down the stairs and she could only take his yipping as an ecstatic yes.

* * *

Normally when Araceli and Lux made their way from home to her mother's, a return to the childhood home for both of them, it was by foot but when precious cargo was involved such as the food in the carefully balanced satchel Araceli had with her tonight, then safer transport was required, or at least steadier where curry wouldn't be at risk of spilling out of the bowl so she flagged down the first gondolier she could. Most of them were men and women she recognised from her frequent use of the bargepoles and traversing the waterways albeit not quite the same way that they did, and the one she hopped in after Lux even knew before she asked where she wanted to. Curiosity lost to embarrassment before she could ask how: she used the gondoliers most when she didn't want to walk all the way to the district her mother lived in with dinner and forgetting someone to their face if they remember her? No. No she couldn't. So she paid him, settled in, made polite conversation.

Not that it was difficult to talk to most gondoliers but that was half their job: fade into the background invisibly or be ready to talk about anything and everything to ensure more business, to put customers at ease, and any embarrassment that lingered at not knowing _how_ he'd known and if it was her own forgetfulness that, that she couldn't make herself ask quickly fled as they chatted: the perfumed, painted, and masked men and ladies of Ebeos who'd toured recently and she agreed it was early in the season for them to have arrived, the grain merchant for Estene muttering constantly of the salty Castilean soils and what could and couldn't grow perhaps with some convincing; this was another reason, of course, to keep in with the gondoliers that had been impressed upon her early in her starting days as a thief when she'd only seen the value in things she could hold in her hands. She knew better now. Knew well enough to keep as much in mind as she could as he poled them expertly about a corner, past a skiff offloading from the floating market that was packing up for the day as he recounted a near-collision earlier in the day – "truly, how terrible it would have been if it had come to pass," she agreed with one hand over the side to skim across the water's surface, Lux up at the prow with his nose high in the air, "only a truly skilled gondolier such as yourself could have averted what could well have been a tragedy, the sea guided me well tonight in coming to you did he not?" – and then into a salacious piece of gossip of a recently ended engagement between the eldest children of a noble and a merchant another client had related. That she had to swear not to breathe a word of but as he said, leaning close as if to judge the horizon better, "good gossip is good gossip; I've been bursting at the seams to tell a trustworthy soul all day and a girl with dinner off to see her mother? What soul is more trustworthy?"

(She was seeing Ernesto tonight. It might be worth her while to trade that one off.)

Before long the gondola drew to a halt by the steps of the Sea's Embrace, Lux shooed out first whilst Araceli accepted the hand, paying and tipping generously; she imagined it was a hard and often thankless job to be a gondolier given the merchants and nobility who'd be their clientele more often than not. As he poled his way off, Araceli looked up to the familiar sign swinging soundlessly overhead, mermaid and merling entwined with their scales glittering from the lantern overhead, a smile on her face. Water sloshed over her boots as she headed up the narrows steps to the doorway, Lux shaking his paws as he scampered ahead of her to the door, the chimes ringing as Araceli pushed it open; this pale blue building, the delicate silver shells picked out to catch the light no matter the time of day, metalwork of the balconies and windows depicting the riotous life of the mercourt and sea in silver. Everything they'd grown up, everything she'd known and she breathed deep as the door swung shut behind them.

Inside and perfumes and burning incense imported and gifted from all across Terradeos washed over her as she strode through the reception area, still the soft pink of the inside of a shell that it had been for generations of Castileans, the doors to the parlour and bar open on either side where men and women laughed and chatted, playing at cards or dice, pleasant entertainment; it was too early yet for the music to have begun, for anything too raucous or rowdy and if she bothered to glance in, Araceli was sure she'd have seen people enjoying a meal or something close to it. The Sea's Embrace was many things to many people after all, including Araceli who headed to the desk, leaning against it to greet the two women: old Abene who'd worn her grey hair in elaborate coils piled high atop her head when Araceli's mother had been young and new to this, some of it spiralling loose in tight coils around her face, a younger woman Araceli didn't recognise who might've been ages with her regarding her with a bored if wary look. Until Lux put his paws up to sniff at Abene and her, ever hopeful of something that might come his way.

"Ladies," Araceli greeted, all smiles, "I trust I find you both in good health?"

"All the better for your arrival, how can we help you this evening? All me to introduce you to Abene," the younger woman extended a hand lighter than Araceli and Abene's in the older woman's direction, Abene favouring her with the indulgent smile Araceli had been on the receiving end of herself as a girl. And since. "I'm Delia."

The air of repetition hung heavily about them, a script no longer stilted but not one she was comfortable straying from. Certainly a new girl learning the front desk responsibilities.

"Araceli Bonaventura y Castell to see Neria Castell. I'm happy to wait if she has an engagement."

At Delia's brows pulling together, Abene smothered a laugh, a hand set on her arm. "Delia, allow me to introduce Neria's daughter to you: children come home to visit family, of course, so long as they aren't engaged. Take a note if you need to," she looked to Araceli with a smile, nodding in the direction of the stairs. "You can go up, she's not with anyone."

After a soft murmur of thanks, Araceli looked up at Delia from beneath her lashes, ignoring the way Abene frowned, inhaled deeply through her nose, and folded her arms. "May I call you Delia? Are you just starting out? I visit often and I haven't met you—" She was taking a risk to lean more heavily against the counter but before she could do more, Abene's hand flashed out to slap her arm.

"You're not too old for me to take a spoon to you Araceli Bonaventura, seeing your mother or not. Shall we both ask her together?" It wasn't as stern a warning as Abene could muster, not by a long shot, but it sent the message it was meant to even as Delia giggled, hand over her mouth as Araceli took a step back to keep herself out of mischief; this wasn't Araceli's house any longer, she had to abide by a different set of rules now and not overstep. 

"Wonderful to see you as ever Abene, I hope to see you again Delia. Enjoy your evening both of you. Lux, come on."

Dancing away from Abene just in case she had a mind to remind her of the warning swats she'd received as a child who'd enjoyed testing the limits of patience and what constituted breaking and bending of rules, Araceli still didn't miss her parting words on the way to the stairs. "Always gratifying to know that a certain girl still hasn't gotten herself killed or clapped in irons."

The yet went unsaid but had Araceli pausing at the foot of the stairs, turning to pull a face at Abene's back that thankfully the woman didn't see or it'd be Araceli's backside and the wooden spoon she still feared to this day for good reason. 

Up the stairs she and Lux went though with thick carpet muffling their footsteps – not the most Castilean of things but a house filled with Brides of the Sea and certain practicalities of their work meant making accommodations – to the end of the hall at the top of the second flight, past two women playing cards at a small table who looked her and Lux up and down then went back to the cards upon recognising her. Not that she blamed them, she'd stolen a glance at both hands on the way, unable to help herself on the way, and given the stakes then the cards were far more interesting than Neria Castell's daughter showing up with her fox for a visit. Neither stopped her from opening the door behind that lead to a hidden set of stairs up to the third level, the private rooms for Brides of the Sea when they weren't at their business, and for any children who lived with them, private baths, lounges, a library: a comfortable space that cut off the world below to allow them peace. Araceli had thundered up and down these halls with a few other children when she'd been tiny and not a soul below had ever known. 

And a few doors down, a woman had leant out into the hall, Lux racing to meet her as Araceli quickened her step with a smile. There, silhouetted in the light from the doorway stood Neria Castell as if risen from the sea with the loose waves of her dark hair spilling over her shoulder, a robe of Ebeos silk printed with seashells tied loosely at the waist, warm brown skin smelling of the same perfume it had all Araceli's life as she pulled her daughter to her, Araceli laughing against her mother's cheek.

"I thought it was time for a girl to visit her mother," Neria said, kissing one cheek then the other when Araceli stood back.

"I've brought dinner but—"

"You'd like a bath?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"Oh Araceli don't give me that look, I'm your mother who knows you. And Lux my terrible one, come here. Go, go," she shooed Araceli even as she took the satchel from her, laughing softly. "What a disgrace to behold, my own flesh and blood. As bad as that father, I won't have you stinking up my rooms and my robe: I'll set the table, you wash up. Off with you."

Araceli didn't have to be told twice, not when it was her mother after all or so she would argue. And often did. But when it came to a bath in this house with water she didn't have to heat herself in a tub, a bath she could fully submerge in without touching her toes to the end with expensive oils for her hair and skin in cut glass bottles, with fragrant candles she could burn on the edge? A bath she'd splashed in, swam in, staged epic tales in with toys as a child? (One of those ships, paint faded now, remained in Araceli's bedroom now, the first simple model of her father ship made for the rough and clumsy hands of a small child.) No, that wasn't a bath Araceli would ever say no to. And certainly, if she was going to have dinner with her mother that she'd taken hours to prepare then she'd take her time scrubbing up.

It'd be rude not to be as clean as the sea foam breaking on the shore after all, her mother _had_ instructed her and who was she to disobey her mother?


	3. Chapter 3

"You haven't made this one for a while," Neria said once Araceli was seated at the table across from her, boots by the door so her bare toes could trace the elegant scrollwork. Pretty thing, it had to be from Estene judging from how dark the wood was. "Celebrating?"  
  
Araceli twisted her wet hair to hang in a sweet-smelling rope over her shoulder, dampening her shirt. "Not really, it's what I had in, bits and pieces and some leftovers still from last time papa was home. You never know where the mood takes you in the kitchen. Besides," she took a bite, savouring it without shame, "it's not just for us, my neighbours have it too, it's not as if I learnt how to cook for two here."  
  
"Oh you've had years to learn, don't keep blaming us."  
  
"I—" Seizing Araceli's silence as an opportunity to pour a dark, heady red wine, Araceli took a sip and bought herself more time. "Well it's wasteful when you've got odds and ends at the end of the month isn't it? Lux would eat 'til he split at the seams but you always end up with more than you need when you're on your own."  
  
"Araceli, my darling girl," Neria took a bite, her free hand – soft, uncalloused, entirely unlike Araceli's – settling to squeeze her daughter's against the table for a moment, "if you expect me to believe that then go fetch your boots and we'll serve those up too."  
  
"Whatever I learnt," she tugged her hand back, picking up her knife, "I learnt in this kitchen." It came out more forcefully than she'd intended it to and more petulant too so she tried again. "A girl has to make ends meet, doesn't she?"  
  
"A girl isn't hurting for coin. She certainly won't be come late tonight either." Neria said it mildly enough, spearing a chunk of sardine on the tines of her fork. "I don't ask, I don't pry, it was all right there in your satchel with dinner."  
  
Araceli couldn't make much of an argument there – if she hadn't wanted her mother to find any of that, she'd have kept it all in her coat pockets. Not that it stopped her from hiding her scowl in her wine or from muttering _every time_ under her breath; there was a pettiness that rose to the surface, something that she couldn't help herself to keep in check as her cheeks heated. Nothing to do with the wine, the spice of the dinner.  
  
Why did her mother manage to bring it out in her?   
  
"Every time? Darling girl it has to be once for every grey hair you've ever given me-"  
  
"You don't have grey hair! Not a single one!" Araceli interrupted sharply enough that Lux's ears pricked up, a whine escaping him before she hushed him.  
  
"And imagine all the grey hairs I _should_ have from raising a girl such as yourself. Oh imagine, Araceli, just imagine the grey hairs I might have or that I might well have – do you think you're privy to all my secrets?"  
  
"Of course not mama." Not that Araceli believed for a second that Neria Castell dyed her hair. There were tells. And her mother, she was sure, would wear her grey hair proudly as she did everything else. Surely.   
  
"Araceli, my darling girl," after a lengthy sip of her wine and another bite of her dinner, her mother set a hand down on Araceli's glass and cutlery set down silently, the message clear to pay attention please as Araceli followed suit. "I want you to be happy, that's all I've ever wanted, well that and good health. A life for you to live as you see fit even if it wasn't the path I imagined you'd live when I had you, raised you, paid for your tutoring. But this is your course to navigate."  
  
"And the sea guides us to where we ought to go?" Araceli prompted. Her mother, after all, believed not only more than most but served as a reminder for those who found their faith slipping in times of crisis, the sea and moon made flesh enough to touch as a Bride of the Sea ought to be. But no answer came and Araceli frowned, unable to stop herself. "Mama?"  
  
"There are times I think that your father and I have muddied the waters on what we tried to teach you even though you know yourself as well as anyone might, better even for a woman your age. I know so many with their doubts carted about on their backs all day and night but," Neria sighed, letting go of Araceli's hand to resume her meal before it could get cold. "Our lessons should have been able to berth alongside each other. Or _that_ one in particular."  
  
"Honesty." Araceli remembered it well, knew it now even as it caught in her mouth as a fish hook, dragged up and out of her at that gentle urging as she took a huge mouthful and regretted it, trying not to cough as the spices caught the back of her throat, hand at her mouth as she forced it down, reaching for the wine immediately. "I'm not—I'm not lying about anything. I don't, not to you. We all have the same bills. Rent, food and drink. Clothes. Weapons. Fees. Money to put aside for the unexpected just to be careful." If she hadn't been eating she might've ticked it off on her fingers but she was occupied and that kept her from counting it out with the silverware anyway which would've been less polite. "It's not a cheap life, being a thief, mama, we have to get by too. If I've enough to help my neighbours then isn't that what I should be doing? Isn't that what you both taught me?"  
  
"Sometimes I worry that your heart is vast enough to drown you." Neria was the one to raise a hand to her mouth where it had been going to her wine; Araceli reached for her, her bottom lip crumpled despite best attempts. "I know, Araceli, I _know_ but I worry despite all your assurances, despite trying not to so as not to be unfair to you. I don't just worry about you. I worry that the sea wants you, you know?"  
  
Araceli nodded, stroking a rough thumb over the back of her mother's soft hand, swallowing carefully her face hot, eyes stinging.   
  
"I worry that the sea would drown you to have you. I look at you sometimes to see what parts of you came from me, your mother, or your father when he's away at sea long enough without word of him that you've asked every sailor you could think of if they've heard any word – don't look so surprised, Brides hear it all – and if there's less of us and more of the sea in you. If one or both of us was selfish. To be too much of our duties and not enough our flesh."  
  
"Mama where is this coming from tonight?" It scared her to see her mother doubting herself. Her father was away at sea, he'd been away and come back, been away and come back, but there had always been her mother here in this room with her and she'd shown Araceli everything, or so she'd thought, clutching at her hand tight enough it hurt for her. (She remembered, for no reason in particular, when she'd been maybe thirteen at the most and the surgeon had been sent for to set both her wrists. A jump she hadn't timed properly. The bone poking through the flesh. Medicine that someone had wrestled into her that had kept her in a bleary haze. Her mother's hand soft and steady throughout.) "Mama that's silly, of course I'm both of you, you had lessons too, you know that. Grandma Zaira's a tutor for that very subject!"  
  
Her mother said nothing, setting her hand on top of Araceli's with the sort of smile that had Araceli's bottom lip wobbling _worse_ until she bit it. She didn't even know _why_.  
  
"If I'm the sea – and I am, we all are, even the ones who forget in other places or even here – it's from both of you. Your love, your duty. That's how we happen."  
  
Slipping her hands free of Araceli's, her mother reached across the table to cup Araceli's face in her hands, smelling faintly of the same bath oils Araceli had helped herself to earlier. "Oh my sweet girl we all have our paths, that's true, and your father and I, we're to help, and yours is too, I know that much, I've known since you weren't more than a pearl. A possibility. Do I know what your course is? No. But that's not my place; I don't think it is at any rate. It isn't my place to question the sea's will, it's no one's place."  
  
It was the work of a moment to throw herself out of her seat, catching it so it wouldn't go clattering back only because this was her mother's room, and to kneel at her mother's seat the way she used to sit when she was little. "What if I want you to question? Where would I be without you or papa?" Araceli hardly recognised her voice in her eyes, roughened and raw, salt flooding her tongue to drown the spice and wine of her dinner.  
  
"You'd be a girl who didn't have a mother asking you foolish questions like this with your hands on her knees, kneeling on the carpet as she upsets the both of you for no reason. Sometimes it just—it hits me. How grown up you are. How long you've been gone out on your own. How proud I am. Then how large the world is and how it could snap you up in its jaws. What do we say all this makes us square for your childhood and leave it at that for tonight? Up, up," she tugged Araceli's hands until she stood, the way she had when Araceli had been small and reluctant to leave what she was doing behind, "finish your dinner and do as your mother says, tell her what her girl has been up to."  
  
It wasn't settled, not be a long shot, but her mother was back to eating and Araceli reluctant to bring it up when she didn't have the words to pick her way through the argument. Maybe when her father got back. Maybe after she saw Ernesto and got paid, saw her friends. Maybe the next time she bumped into Marjani her old duelling instructor—the thoughts were interrupted by a polite cough.  
  
"I'll feed that to Lux if you don't want it."  
  
"I want it, I want it." Funny how the old threats of childhood reared their head tonight but it seemed to be that sort of night where the memories, the fears, the uncertainties all pressed against the walls and windows to slip in the room with them. Pretending not to spy her mother wiping at her eyes, she forged ahead with what she'd been asked. "I was working, of course, because you and papa instilled that in me from an early age of course—"  
  
"No run-ins with the guards?"  
  
Offended, Araceli arched an eyebrow. "Of course not, who do you think you're talking to?"  
  
"I don't know, I don't pry into all of your exploits, we don't run in the same social circles either."  
  
(That was a lie, an extremely polite one but better for the both of them to conduct their lives in such a way as Araceli hastily swigged the last of her wine, refiling her glass and her mother's.)  
  
"Tell me then, were you anywhere I'd know?"  
  
"A merchant's home, things Ernesto asked me to pick up for him for whoever wants them."  
  
"And you never ask?"  
  
"Sometimes." Araceli shrugged, finished the last few bites and pushed her plate away so she could sit a little more comfortable, swinging her feet back and forth. "It goes from person to person to person, there's a whole chain it gets passed along sometimes. Other times it'll go in the vault for such times as it might be needed again. Or you'll sell it right back to the person you stole it from in the first place. Insurance you know. We tend never to steal from anyone who can't afford it unless there's a message to be sent, even then, I think that would be an exceptional circumstance; I don't know when anyone last got up to that, not anyone associated with The Orlop."  
  
"Well that's something at the least."   
  
"We haven't talked about this in years; you're just that nostalgic tonight?"  
  
"I had dreams I haven't had in years. Not since I was a girl. Not since you were little more than an idea. Then a girl I could hold in one arm. The dreams I had when you left home." Neria finished her meal swirling her wine in her glass rather than drinking it, shutting Araceli up effectively. There wasn't much arguing you could do with dreams, not when they surfaced as flotsam and jetsam time and again.   
  
"Do you want to…" Araceli trailed off, shifting in her seat again.   
  
"We're talking, aren't we? You're here, I can see that you're safe and well and you're going to tell me the actual story of what it is to be a Castilean thief, word for word better than any complaints that _might_ ever come my way or in books I'm sure you'd point out all the errors in if you ever read them. Come, come, the night is creeping closer and we both have our business to get to, don't leave me in suspense."  
  


* * *

  
  
Dark had fallen by the time Araceli left her mother's but the days at least were steadily growing longer towards the longest day of the year and the shortest night, a night where business had to be conducted quickly in and amongst celebrations after all of them sweating and complaining all day. A double-edged sword by all accounts no matter your profession. But that was still weeks and weeks away as Araceli and Lux made their way through the docks that were never still, never silent – it was an ill sign if they were, Castileos being a nation of sailors as it was with all goods having to be brought in or taken out by sea – with music spilling out of open tavern doorways on their way to The Orlop, past where ships were in for repairs, veering off to the left instead of right when the split came for the ship graveyards where those that couldn't be salvaged were left to be reclaimed after being brought home to rest.  
  
The Orlop was home to thieves and fences of Castileos and had been for generations, the meeting place and den for them to buy and sell whatever they had on them, to share anything they cared to: knowledge, information, skills, or anything else they might care to trade or profit from amongst themselves as well as to pass on connections. Outsiders not within their line of work weren't permitted. Even prospective thieves or fences weren't allowed in until they'd made that choice and once you left the life behind, that was it, the doors forever barred. It had been a ship once, or so Araceli had been told by her fellow thieves Toma – as native a Castilean as she – and Eira – an Ebeosan girl and that was all she could ever say about Eira confidently – but in all her research to find out where it had come from, no one could tell her. Smugglers, pirates, any number of traders and sailors, Sons of the Sea such as her father, not even her father's mother Miriea had ever been able to tell her anything about The Orlop's history. That it had been a ship belonging to the light-fingered was what half believed. Others said it had been a ship stolen from the wealthy, the first concerted effort by thieves working together. Some said it was both or neither. All that mattered was that it had been made their home, claimed and kept as all Castileans did with innumerable ships; repairs were carried out as solemn duty with planks taken only from ships with crews of a similar disposition to possession and the law extending to rogues, brigands, dishonest merchants.   
  
At the door Araceli laid her palm over the worn wooden eyes of the siren, the grain of the wood smooth beneath so many palms such as hers. She'd come from The Orlop. Their guiding lady who'd seen it all.   
  
Not a single lantern was lit by The Orlop, nothing like the rest of Castileos from the main island to the smaller ones wherever people might be living, only two hooded figures on watch in dark blue jackets with oil lanterns nodding and gesturing for Araceli to head inside. Adjusting her satchel, Araceli nodded back and slipped through a door that made not a sound into a space that was nothing at all as the outside would suggest, candles and lure lights glowing where they'd be easily doused, spiced meat tickling her nose, and the ever-present rising smell of rum and salt water heavy on the tongue. The doors were locked behind her, the rest of Castileos shut away: here she was in the thieves world she'd joined as a girl; she would have to knock to re-join the rest of them again. The Orlop had been named well by the thieves long ago; it was down where the lowest decks of a ship would have been that business was conducted, down below the waterline they kept safe as Araceli peered over the railings for Ernesto. He shouldn't be difficult to spot, not so flash a man as he who never saw the point in blending into the crowd and sure enough moments later that ornate red coat came into view and Araceli pushed her way through the crowd by the bar and down the stairs.  
  
"If it isn't my favourite!" Ernesto's roar had heads turning their way once she'd made her way down the two 'decks' such as they were to his side, his grin wide enough to flash a glint of three gold teeth, the well-trimmed spade beard freshly oiled, skin ruddier than usual. Tonight was clearly going well already for him.  
  
"You've said that five times over tonight before setting eyes on me," she said, giving him a little shove before she allowed him to embrace her but she was delighted as always. Of course she was his favourite, who else would be? And Ernesto was a friend as much as he was a trusted fence, someone willing to take her stranger finds along with the gold and jewels, his complaints mostly for the sake of complaining; Ernesto _always_ had a buyer lined up. Lucky for her, he liked to add, the reminder she rolled her eyes at every time.  
  
"Those are the words of a girl who hasn't any children: if you ever have any them you learn that you can indeed have as many favourites as you need to without diluting the meaning of that word as a bootlegger does his rum. Now," he beckoned for her to sit across from him on one of the upholstered barrels serving for seats, the pleasantries over, "what do you have for me tonight?"  
  
"As requested." Araceli slid her satchel onto her lap with a flourish and triumphant smile, producing his matched daggers, his signet ring, and finally the poetry book. "That is pure _filth_. Not that I would know, of course, I am a good girl raised well by both her mother and father." Her mother who might well know about the volume. She should have asked her about it when she was there, she'd need to do it later though it wouldn't be the same without the book in her possession.   
  
The ritual was familiar whether or not Araceli was returning something requested or just whatever she'd picked up, turning over the items for Ernesto's critical inspection, detailing to him how she imagined anyone else had to explain their work day to a boss. That's what it was when it came down to this part, not whatever her mother sometimes might imagine or anyone else who wasn't part of the thieves who knew Araceli's line of work: you reported in, records were kept for the sake of accountability and a person's good name and reputation when work or specific jobs were going about, and that was how it went.   
  
"No one saw you?" Ernesto asked with his set of jeweller's lenses up to inspect the ring, Araceli resisting the urge to swat at him. She wasn't old enough yet to avoid having him take the flat of his rapier to the backs of her knees, a threat he'd never followed through with.  
  
Yet.  
  
"Not a soul, and it's me, Ernesto, have I _ever_ been caught by any guard?"  
  
"You've gotten into scrapes."  
  
She scowled at him even if his attention was still affixed on the ring. "And even in those times – the last of which was three months ago and not my fault—"  
  
"Perfect planning…" Ernesto interrupted, removing the lenses to slip back into a coat pocket, thick well-groomed brows raised to dare her to further comment.  
  
"That was not entirely my fault," she continued after biting the inside of her cheek, flushed and flustered that he'd bring that incident up tonight, resenting him for it. "If you'd let me finish, I would have reminded you that despite what happened, no one knew it was me, no one found me, and I made out well. We both did."  
  
"We did, we did," Ernesto said at length, beckoning for two young helpers to come forth with his chest and ledger, the thief children born or adopted into the life early on, some of them children of thieves or fences who were as invaluable here in The Orlop as they were out in Castileos proper as eyes and ears and little runners. "But don't get too big for your boots; you aren't so old I can't give you a good scolding. Reckon your parents and that Marjani would agree with me."  
  
"Don't bring my mama or papa into this, they're holy people," she muttered, uncomfortable as the children watched the exchange between the two of them, Ernesto cackling.  
  
"Right." He clapped his hands together, beckoning to the items she'd retrieved. "Away to the vault with these children sharpish if you will, find your friends, I'll send for you when you're needed." Eager to be away, the children grinned and scampered off after ducking their heads to Araceli but not before they paused.  
  
"You can pet Lux, you don't need to ask every time and the only fingers he ever tries to nip are the ones keeping food from him." She smiled at them as she nudged the fox that trotted over to the children and off with them. He'd find her when she needed him, Lux always did.  
  
"Coin? Or can I tempt you with trade Araceli; it's as good as ever. All items in mint condition, all items as requested, and the bonus for getting all three to me early as agreed upon so you're looking at a pretty pay day as is."  
  
"I'll take the coin, I don't have anything for trade at the moment but I do have a little news I want to pass on." It was always worth being in Ernesto's favour. Or someone else's, she didn't know who'd pass what she was about to tell him around if it came to much as she waited for him to make the suitable notes in the ledger, opening up his chest to settle up her coin with him as she passed over the empty purse in her satchel.  
  
Araceli was rarely in the habit of bringing her own money to The Orlop unless she had good reason to, certainly not when she was guaranteed payment.  
  
"What sort of news is it, let me just," Ernesto licked a finger, flipping through his ledger to back pages and his tiny neat looping writing that was a shorthand she'd never deciphered, at least not sat opposite him. "Continue."  
  
"Gondolier I took to see mama was telling me about an engagement ended between the eldest children of a noble and a merchant didn't get more out of him and I wasn't in the mood to go prying but we've got some people who could do something with that if there's anything to be done. Or something to keep an eye on. Always tensions and gifts and arrangements when anything like that gets broken off."  
  
"Now that _is_ something, you know Eira's someone who might be good for that, she's got the touch for those sort of jobs." Jotting down the note and whatever else must have entered his head to go with it, Ernesto shut his ledger, smiling at Araceli, warm and satisfied. "Will that be it for the night?"  
  
"I believe it will. A pleasure as always Ernesto."  
  
"A pleasure and a joy Araceli."  
  
He clasped hands with her as she rose to her feet, waving her off into the throng that built around The Orlop, a familiar din as a game of dice began that she almost found herself tempted by before she spotted two familiar figures over by a small table on one of the mid-levels and hurried over, waving at one of them. Lux yipped not far behind her, crashing into the back of her legs in his haste not to be left behind as she swung by the bar to order drinks for her and her friends as she swung down into one of the empty seats, smiling widely at her friends who accepted the drinks and a kiss on the cheek each.  
  
"'Celi my darling!" Eira Ness, Ebeosan native and adorned in the butterfly tattoos to prove it across her bare shoulders grabbed her by the arm to pull Araceli into an embrace that almost sent a drink sloshing thanks to a wayward elbow. Not that the tables of The Orlop hadn't suffered worse in their day but Araceli had paid for those drinks with her freshly earned coin and she wasn't one to waste good money or drink, at least not without reason.   
  
(Not that she'd paid for good drink, if The Orlop had any, but she'd paid for it so it was a matter of principle when it came down to it.)  
  
"Eira," Araceli smiled, extracted herself, and nodded to Toma Funar, as native a Castilean as Araceli herself, smiling of salt and something stronger that caused her to choke. "Toma what is that? Ugh, it reeks worse than Lux some days!"  
  
"Well that's a compliment and I'll take it since he's the one you'll always let into your bed," he teased, lazily dodging the swat she sent his way. "Has life been kind to you 'Celi? It's been a while, this is the first I've seen Eira more than in passing for a couple of weeks, think it's been the same for you too."  
  
"I thought it was you I saw at the market a few days ago. And Eira…we were at the same party, I didn't want to say hello for the obvious reason."   
  
"You were having a night off from the looks of things. Tell me, how is the lovely Amara?"  
  
"Yes," Toma leant forward, elbows on the table, chin on hands, fluttering his eyelashes ridiculously enough that Araceli snorted her drink up her nose, eyes burning. "How _is_ the _lovely_ Amara and why isn't my hair long enough to flip?"  
  
"Amara is well, thank you for asking, and that technically _is_ working." Araceli's voice was tight, Eira having to pat her back when she tried speaking again thanks to The Orlop and the particular sort of rum that might have been watered down but still retained potency enough for any sailor. "And also, what's a night off for any of us, really? A night at home?"  
  
"And is that really a night off?" Toma asked as he raked a hand through his black hair, still damp and with the salt on him Araceli guessed he must've been swimming before he'd come here tonight, "I mean I know I'm probably sorting everything out for a job, planning things, resting up for it."  
  
"Here's to we who never rest so that those above us never rest well either." Eira lifted her glass high in a toast that Araceli and Toma joined, all of them smiling.   
  
"Anyway," Araceli downed the remainder of her drink, wincing through the burn as she breathed through her nose all the way, "How did that job go anyway? I can't keep anyone's dance cards straight these days but I'm usually better at knowing if someone's working the same parties as me so I know to avoid or to help."  
  
"It was a last minute thing, didn't know if I was going to wrangle the invite or not you know how these things can be at times, well, Toma, you can't because you're a hopeless vagabond and a scoundrel—"  
  
"There are ladies who love that, you could ask."  
  
Eira looked down her long elegant nose at him, Araceli biting the inside of her cheek to keep her laughter at bay as Eira continued as if she hadn't heard him. "Anyway I got myself the invite of course—"  
  
"Dropped the airs and graces then?" Araceli couldn't resist needling, Toma bumping his knee against hers under the table as the two of them laughed again at Eira's expense.  
  
"You'd know more about it than I would if you cared to use it," Eira sniffed haughtily but there were spots of colour high on her cheeks; Eira was paler by far than Toma or Araceli, and gave herself away through blushing often enough that they still hadn't quite outgrown their childhood habit of teasing her over it.   
  
"I don't know what you mean," Araceli shot back because she was in a good mood tonight and didn't want to get drawn into whatever sort of game Eira might be in the mood for if she was bringing anything like that up. "No, tell me, how did it go? I mean last time we bumped into each other on the job I think it was Toma and I, one of us coming out as the other went in."  
  
"Ernesto's littlest one was sick, weren't they?" Toma watched for Araceli's nod and continued with a dark mutter into his mug. "Last time either of us used that fence, greedy bastard pushing their luck."  
  
"They got reprimanded for it, shame the two of you missed it. Anyway, wasn't their plenty left for the taking that night?"  
  
"Buttons," Araceli replied, toying with her empty glass.  
  
"Oh I don't know, abelone or pearl buttons? They'll fetch a pretty price once you get those off to the right buyer in the right place."  
  
"Ah that was a few years ago now," Toma threw back the last of his drink with a satisfied air, "we live and learn. Your party, missus, the daring nights where you and this other young lady pretend not to know one another though your gazes meet across the dancefloor and the parties you have come with they wonder, for a moment, oh they wonder and they seethe—Ah! Not both at once, I need these arms to work!" Toma hadn't managed to dodge either punch – Araceli's hadn't been full force, she couldn't see if Eira's had been – that had come at his upper arm from each side at once, and neither could he rub both arms at once, settling from shifting from one to the other, cutting them both hurt looks.  
  
"Serves you right, what rubbish have you been reading?" Eira's affront was real or real enough it made little difference, a flush creeping up her neck. "I am a consummate professional, Toma Funar."  
  
"And are you suggesting that I'm not, Eira Ness? I'm hurt. Wounded even. I think you owe me a drink if you don't want a duel." Araceli sat back, arms folded. Eira laughed at her, a bright startled burst until she realised that yes, Araceli was in fact serious and she pushed away from the table with a mutter and a huff. "Didn't know if she'd go for that," she whispered to Toma as their friend departed.  
  
"You know you've got to ruffle her feathers every so often, it's not good for her if you don't, it's that weird Ebeos thing even if I've never seen her in a mask unless a job demands it." They watched Eira at the bar, her strident demand for service because there was no one who would ever deny Eira Ness daughter of Ebeos service no matter where she might be before Toma nudged Araceli's knee again. "Were you working at the party she was at?"  
  
"Toma," Araceli laid her hand on his, one brow raised, "who do you think you're talking to?"  
  
Toma was laughing when Eira returned with the drinks, prompting another line of questioning: another good night in succession, Araceli's pockets well-lined, her belly full, the company warm and familiar. No bad thing to be a thief in Castileos as the telling of the party finally began in earnest over the bottle of brandy Eira had finagled out of the barman into the small hours over the musicians that started up. No, it was no bad thing to be a Castilean thief at all.


	4. Chapter 4

As the beginnings of a blush began to stain the morning sky, Araceli opened a bedroom window, the hinges oiled so well that they'd never have dared to squeak even if she'd swung them open wildly. Still yawning, she dragged a hand through her wild sleep-mussed curls, wandering back with her shirt half-untucked from the trousers she'd just tugged on; presentable if anyone across the street happened to glance across. Here in the comfortable heart of the noble district though it'd be the servants for the most, maybe a guard or two, not most of the nobles themselves who'd still be abed at this hour the way the rest of the household probably were.  
  
Across the room Amara groaned in protest, Araceli turning to catch her just as she reached out find the spot she'd vacated moments before. Somewhere below Lux would be circling because he knew when and where he was to find her when she'd been off spending the night somewhere, tucked safely on the property, and Araceli knew she only had so long before several things happened: Lux yapping for her attention, the guard patrol changed, and – most important of all – Amara's household woke up, including her parents. If he yapped he'd wake the whole street and that would send someone bursting in here where Araceli would have to flee instead of her plan at the moment where she could leisurely finish getting dressed, maybe even fix her hair to the best of her ability, and climb down at an easy pace to the street below using the ornate railings.  
  
"Araceli?" Amara's voice was thick with sleep as she finally sat up, arms stretched high above her head. Araceli continued to look for her boots, cursing herself for kicking them off in haste last night when she'd come calling.   
  
"Go back to sleep," she urged, peering under the bed where half the covers were hanging off - there was the right one at least – listening to Amara moving around above her.  
  
"No, I'm awake. I know you said," Amara yawned mid-sentence, cutting herself off as Araceli sat back to tug the boot on and spotted the twin on the fancy stool under the vanity, "you had to leave first thing but I didn't think you meant first light."  
  
"Amara—" Araceli took a breath in and out through her nose, preparing herself – again – to have the same argument. Well, not quite an argument, they never had cross words between them but there wasn't anything else that came close in her mind so argument it was. "You _know_ your parents would gut me." She strolled over to the vanity with as even a gait as she could, one boot on, one boot off, a good inch difference with the heel on them for climbing as she considered her words. "No, that's not right, she'd get one of the servants to gut me; we've never met but from what you've said she doesn't strike me as the type to bloody her hands herself dealing with the likes of me."  
  
"Why would she do that to you Araceli and you would know if she would if you ever met her." Amara folded the covers down, a dark hand sweeping her braids over a bare shoulder from what Araceli could see at the vanity.   
  
It was easy, this way, to pretend that Amara's words were sincere when there was this distance. When she wasn't looking her in the eye.   
  
"We could be quiet," Amara offered teasingly as Araceli tugged her boot up and stood to tuck her shirt back into her trousers, settling back against the tangle of blankets and pillows still as naked as they'd both been on finally falling asleep a few hours before now.   
  
Araceli bit her lip, forcing herself to ignore the offer as tempting as it was, the way she wanted nothing better than to allow Amara to undress her all over again, Amara's hands on her thighs-- She shook herself, turning to stare at Amara with a raised brow. "Remind me, Amara, which one of us had to clap a hand over her mouth last night…no…wait it's all coming back to me…oh it was _you_ Amara!"  
  
Downstairs a door opened and closed. Araceli was glad she wasn't the only one who jumped at the sound. The household was stirring now, she was burning her precious minutes. When she looked over her shoulder she could make out someone moving on a balcony a couple of houses over, just out the corner of her eye, another household with their curtains being drawn or the windows opened to greet the day fast approaching. She had to go before too many people could spot her leaving.   
  
"Can I be blamed for something that was your doing?"  
  
"I heard no complaints."  
  
"Besides, have you looked at your mouth?"  
  
Araceli turned back to the vanity mirror and sure enough, her bottom lip was still more than a little puffy from biting down on it to silence herself; that was the hazard of sneaking about with noble girls in their houses when their parents were home, you couldn't be as loud as you wanted to be, not without risk. Her cheeks burned as she groped blindly for her coat and her dignity, the former easier to come by than the latter. "Anyway, I don't think meeting your parents the morning after I've stayed the night without permission is the best way to make a good impression, and everything you've said about them makes me think they like to meet people before they start staying the night. Besides," she picked up a comb, doing what she could with her hair, "showing up unannounced for breakfast? I could never be so rude."  
  
"You and your manners." Amara rose from the bed, bringing the sheets with her which wasn't helpful at all, not when they were the palest seafoam, not when she gave Araceli's shoulders a little shove to have her sitting at the vanity so she could take the comb. Especially not when she caught her by the chin, tipping her head up to kiss her, Araceli pulling her closer by the hips, moaning softly when she pulled away. "You know it's only the old-fashioned traditional parents who think that way?"  
  
Amara busied herself with Araceli's hair and she closed her eyes for a moment to enjoy it. "I prefer not finding out the hard way. You know who my parents are, you can understand the caution, can't you?" She kept her tone light, close to apologetic.   
  
They'd probably circle around this for years. They always did.   
  
"There, perfectly presentable for the journey home I think." Amara kissed her again before Araceli could say anything, dropping another between her brows before she pulled her to her feet, Araceli smiling because there was a reason she and Amara still kept this up. It never got complicated, no matter what, just two unlikely friends who had fun.  
  
Coat on, belt and weapons in place, Araceli readied herself to go out the window because she knew she was pushing her luck by now when Amara caught her hand. "You're coming back?" She asked, same as always.  
  
"Of course I am," and she kisses her again, tangled her hands in those long braids, the fashionable glass beads at the ends clinking when she did. "Now go back to bed, sweet dreams."  
  
Amara laughed but watched her as Araceli swung herself over the railing – a new installation, seahorses clutching to kelp stalks to replace the mermaids that had been there before and she liked this one better, easier to grab as she started on the way down – clambering down with ease. She didn't glance down much as she wanted to, trusting that she hadn't missed her window with the guards or that she could carry herself with the confidence of someone leaving from a tryst. It wasn't unheard of and she wasn't the most out of place in her well-cut clothes and she'd avoided run-ins with guards here for about long enough that they'd not have reason to look over her for too long.   
  
She hoped.  
  
Amara waved to her, leaning perilously out the open window once Araceli had jumped the final foot down to land in a low crouch and she couldn't help herself from giving a bow, Amara swooning as she closed the window behind her. Laughing quietly, she was interrupted by paws on her leg as Lux made his presence known.  
  
"Oh my sweet boy did you miss me? Do you want breakfast to make up for it?"  
  
He hopped up on all four feet, racing in a circle around her then broke into a trot so jaunty it couldn't be anything but a yes, Araceli following after him at a brisk stroll through the noble district where Amara and her family called home. Here the buildings were grand, the guard patrols heavier and more frequent though at this hour when half of them were half-asleep or their shifts were swapping over they were more likely to ignore a girl and her fox walking along, especially when both of them knew how to act as if they belonged and they made good time to the next district where the merchants called home, an ill-defined boundary where the so-called merchant royalty – self-described – called home. Those who'd made their fortunes but hadn't quite climbed so high as the nobility or married into them, homes less palatial than the one she'd left from but still obscene to Araceli's eyes. _Estates_ were what they had by all rights in the noble district, even carefully maintained little plots in some areas despite salt water making it near impossible for most things to grow from overseas, the finest of building materials and ornamentation. This deep into the main island they were sheltered from the storms, they even paid for their own private guards too.  
  
They had gates too.  
  
Araceli kept walking, not lingering as she might some days if she was casing somewhere, the gates shrinking as she went, the scrollwork less elegant until at last it disappeared with the gates missing entirely too, the homes less lavish as well which was the sign she was in the merchants district proper. Still beautiful homes but not as gaudy about it, at least not from the outside. After all, why spend all that money on a home if a merchant were truly worth their salt if they hadn't marriages and contracts tied up with nobles to have their futures secured? The people in the heart of the merchants district had worked for their wealth and still had to or at least felt the need to, even those who'd had theirs passed down to them; her mother liked to tell Araceli stories of the occupants and Araceli had been inside enough of them too now to keep note of all the differences. The guards though, the guards were what they had in common since no merchant was about to risk their money or their goods.   
  
Some of the guards nodded to her when she passed them by since it was early still and Araceli was a girl in last night's clothes with her hair a salvaged mess, catching the smiles, the raised brows and nudged elbows, a few laughs and winks as they took in how rumpled she was and the direction she'd come from and where she was headed. Not that it was any skin off her nose; she'd had a fun night into the small hours, why should she care about the opinions of some idiots? Besides, if they saw her headed the opposite direction another night they'd probably think nothing of it and she could rely on that when she might be off to do something else. There were always trade-offs in this line of work.  
  
Sadly, the trouble with walking home was that she'd left it a little too late and the guards had changed over proper in the merchants district before she'd fully left it behind. She should've left right away. She shouldn't have dallied about with Amara even as briefly as she had. Time to hustle herself before any unwanted attention might be drawn her way, just to be safe; Araceli still had work to do here later on, or potentially. This district had always been a profitable payday for her and she wasn't about to jeopardise that, not now, not ever. Giving Lux a nudge, she turned down a side street most often used for loading deliveries that she tended to favour by night when people would be less likely to notice her since deliveries were over and done with – for the most part – by the time she did her work, she headed off, aiming for the shortcut, hoping that she'd have enough luck stowed to avoid getting in the way.  
  
"Come on Lux, up," she sing-songed as she hoisted the fox up and onto her shoulders. As good as he was at climbing, more agile than the many dogs about Castileos when it came to it, and more comfortable about the water than the cats some kept with them even on boats or skiffs or ships, there were things the fox had never gotten the hang of even after all these years together.  
  
Leaping from pole to pole across the water as Araceli skipped the narrow streets in favour of the waterways proper? That was one of them.  
  
With Lux settled up on her shoulders as a living, breathing fur stole in the fashion of the stoles rich ladies out of Albas had made popular for the Castilean winters, the pair soon made their way out to where narrow footways and temporary bridges gave way to the open water that housed the floating market that extended all the way out to the docks, threading through the island even so far as the palace nestled deep in the heart of it all if someone followed the right passages. Gondolas ferried revellers from last night home, the gondoliers poling them expertly along even as some occupants seemed in danger of leaning too far out and into the waters, the way Amara did sometimes at her window when she saw Araceli off in the mornings.   
  
The same gondolier who'd taken Araceli to see her mother waved a hand as he wove past a mooring pole; all smiles as she waved past, a well-dressed couple she thought she recognised slumped in the cushioned seats, faces slack with sleep even from this distance. Or a hangover. It was difficult to tell from this distance and the speed he was moving at and Araceli wasn't long in moving through a small press of bodies waiting for a bridge to be tossed across so they could tie it off and head for the market that was taking shape out on the wide open section of water between the tall buildings about it; the floating market of Castileos was known far and wide and though it moved around the island as required, this was where it truly thrived. She set a hand up on Lux's back to hold him steady as she picked her way through them, watching as a heavily laden barge slowly passed them, decorated with brightly dyed scarves that fluttered in the early morning breeze with smaller skiffs following in its wake selling jewellery that clinked and chimed softly as they went, splitting off to head in the direction that she'd come from. Maybe they were hoping for a better payday. Only a passing glance came her way, a few laughs when anyone spotted Lux, the odd child out early staring long enough that she bent low enough for him to have his chin scratched even as she fought through yawns and the whale song moans of an empty stomach.  
  
"I wonder what Amara's family have for breakfast," she murmured to Lux as they kept going, listening to him whuff in her ear. Probably as interested as her though Lux who knew where the kitchen scraps got thrown out would be more intimately acquainted with the menu in the estate than Araceli herself. "Caviar. Fresh fruit from Ebeos. Bacon, I bet they have bacon at Amara's, I'm sure I could smell it."  
  
It never helped to talk about food when she was hungry but she couldn't help herself, stomach growling worse than before as she gave up on waiting for the bridge for the mooring poles, light on her feet the whole way as she checked Lux was as secure as he could be. He knew the drill. A seasoned professional, same as her but it never hurt to be sure when the stakes were as high as they were right now, a delighted round of applause coming from the left as got her balance, looking for the next pole. Then they were off. Flying over the water, over the barge poles that jutted up and out of the water, her favourite way to travel that wasn't by rooftop with the wind in her hair with a confidence that bordered on cockiness; Araceli knew she was one wrong step, one wobble or mistimed jump or collision from sending both her and Lux splashing into the waters beneath them and yet it didn't happen. It never did.  
  
There were near misses, the odd boat with her toe or heel clipping, even a hand outstretched to a shout – sometimes protests and worse – but she never so much as splashed any of them as she carried on.   
  
Later in the day this wasn't quite as practical what with the bridges tied in place once the market had settled from the worst of the traffic and then she'd have to use them and wade through crowds or go via rooftop, that or shout for bridges to be moved same as others were doing now, impatience lending a bite to their voices as rope and wooden slats were reeled and tossed back and forth, back and forth. She caught one in mid-air when the throw went short, holding it tight to her chest as she wobbled perilously for a sickening moment to try to keep her balance, Lux's head up as he sniffed the air and he was making low noises of alarm and protest, working himself up to sound off in earnest when she shushed him.  
  
"Enough or you'll get an early morning bath and me with you, and you won't thank me for that." It was impossible to look him in the eye as she scolded him, trying to spot who wanted the bridge in the clamour of folk as she turned as much as she could on the balls of her feet, calling out to the people waiting. "Be ready, hands out!"  
  
Fortunately someone caught it, a thanks called back as Araceli headed off on her way. She wasn't the only one to get about this way but it was for the nimble and the daring but she did lift a paw of Lux's to wave back as she repositioned him, the docks beckoning, brine in the air and the sky brightening from the saline. Beneath the water reached slender pink and purple arms dotted with silver, ready to catch her should she fall and she smiled down at them; she'd toss some of her breakfast to the waters as thanks when she finally got some but as her feet found solid reclaimed wood, she reached down and into the water, letting the squid that patrolled these waterways investigate before they puffed off again.  
  
Lux hopped down off her shoulder only to reach up, pawing insistently.  
  
"Yes, yes, breakfast, we're going!"  
  
Hopefully they hadn't missed the fresh catch, Araceli didn't know if Lux would forgive her if they had.  
  


* * *

  
  
Gláucia's stall was one of the few on the docks that never moved about as a mark of respect for a venerable old woman who'd staked her claim decades ago to provide hot meals for anyone enticed her way as Araceli and Lux were every time they passed by. That and good offcuts: Gláucia didn't trouble herself bartering and haggling with the fishermen over the prime fish that came in but took the odds and ends, the strangely shaped specimens that didn't have a thing wrong with them that plenty had ever found but maybe didn't look just as pretty as a centrepiece. With the clamour of tavern doors opening and closing, still spilling noise and song out into the street and with supplies being offloaded about them since there weren't many hours when the docks were quiet, Araceli and Lux nestled themselves at a stool and waited for their breakfasts as the old woman – a fixture when her parents had been young, even when her grandparents had been young to hear her mother tell it – bustled about, small and solid with her white hair dyed blue at the ends. A woman who might well have been hewn of salt, who'd once told Araceli she'd lost the last knuckle of the little finger on her left hand to a crab that had tried stealing her knife.  
  
Araceli wasn't about to doubt her on that count.   
  
A fresh burn scar extended up Gláucia's arm when she rolled her sleeve up to stir the sauce, Araceli pushing Lux down again when he tried to hop up at the counter. "Manners," she insisted, tutting at him.  
  
"He's a growing boy," Gláucia said over her shoulder with a smile.  
  
"He's only going to grow outwards. Like a pufferfish." Araceli puffed her cheeks out, moving her arms out to the side; Lux snorted, offended.   
  
"Nothing wrong with a healthy layer to take to the sea with us." Gláucia tossed something through the air, small and pink that might've been a shrimp, but it was gone, snapped up between white teeth before Araceli could tell for certain. "And here you both are: your favourite and his."  
  
" _Thank you_ ," Araceli groaned the words even as she curled forward as if that would do anything to muffle the protests of her stomach that had only risen in pitch since she'd hit the docks and the riot of cooking smells. "My stomach thinks my throat's been cut."  
  
"But of course when you're sitting here. Go on, eat, eat."  
  
Araceli didn't need to be told a third time as she took her bread bowl in one hand and a large flat scallop shell that she set down for Lux, overflowing with odds and ends that he could barely contain himself for, forcing Araceli to nudge him back with her leg so she could put it down without spilling it all over the ground. Not that he'd mind, Lux would eat things that had been rotting for days under the full glare of the summer sun _after_ he'd rolled in them but if they were in public she liked him to at least try to behave himself a little. That done, it was time to lift the lid of her bread bowl, inhaling tomato and freshly cooked fish, a citrus note beneath it all before she took the spoon Gláucia had left her, digging in with relish. A little moan escaped her before she could stifle it and she caught the old woman laughing as she wiped her hands on her leather apron, fresh blood gleaming on the front.   
  
"Scallops?" She asked after a mouthful.  
  
"You wake up in time that's what you get."  
  
"I was…I had a long way home."  
  
"Oh I'll bet you did." It wasn't Gláucia answering but a third voice, one Araceli knew well and she swallowed quickly, twisting in her seat to look at them as they placed an order for the same thing as her, bending to scratch Lux who did them the honour of pausing in his inhalation of his own breakfast.  
  
"Marjani!" Araceli called in delight, lurching forward in her seat to embrace the woman who'd taught her to duel and shoot and so many other invaluable lessons in her life, pulled in close so the silk of her headscarf tickled her cheek, wrapped up in the familiar smell of rum, leather and cloves from her cigarillos. "What fortune I have to see you this morning!"  
  
"And you," Marjani let her go, settling in her seat to thank Gláucia for her own meal before bending low to scratch Lux behind the ears where he realised he'd been missing out on what was going on above his head. "Oh and you little thief. Isn't it past your bedtime?" She teased, picking up her spoon with one hand, the other pinching Araceli's cheek.  
  
She swatted at it but Marjani was too quick for her. One day. One day she'd get her back. "I've been to bed Marjani this is an early morning for me, I can have those."  
  
"They're rare enough to be remarked upon still." Marjani's face creased into a smile as she spoke. "Let me guess…the long goodbye with charming company, oh but no company more charming than yourself? Don't make that face, I've known your father years, you think you get that from your mother but that's him all over."  
  
Araceli took a deep breath – not a huff, nothing so undignified or petulant if the accusation came her way – and ate her breakfast since she'd paid good coin for something as delicious as this, not about to let it go cold as Marjani teased her. As was Marjani's right though there was something about it that had her turned to the girl green as gutweed she'd first been before her and not the woman she fancied herself now. Perhaps that was the right of all teachers, to have their ways to keep you in line and easily cut back down to size, never too big for your boots. Lux had nudged his scallop shell from beneath her stool to between them, rattling over the seashells that had been ground and pressed into the dockside generations ago, rattling it over the uneven surface as he chased down the last of his meal with relish.   
  
"Well we both know that my parents taught me good manners, even papa." She smirked when the remark had Marjani choking on her next bite, hand at her mouth. "You taught me too, isn't a person proud when their lessons stick?"  
  
"I don't know if parents would be when it's something like that but your parents being your parents…" She shook her head, the knotted ends of the scarf swaying until she tossed them over her shoulder, fanning her face; Marjani wasn't alone in her laughter, Gláucia's shoulders shaking too as she went back to butchering tuna. "You seen your mother lately?"  
  
"The other night, we had dinner together – do you have messages to pass on?"  
  
"Your father's ship'll be back in soon."  
  
The words sent a shiver down Araceli's spine and it was her turn to choke when she mistimed a bite, Marjani patting her back to see her through as her eyes watered. "What did you hear?" Her throat burned as she asked, voice reedy but she had to know; Marjani heard what Araceli didn't, retired as she was.  
  
"A few friends came in late last night, said they sailed alongside one another for a few days to trade news – he was coming around Ebeos, they'd been out by Corundus – so if that's what you're angling for you should present yourself at the Roving Gannet."  
  
"The Roving Gannet? I thought they weren't due back for another month yet?" Araceli took a bite, chewing it thoughtfully as she made herself sit still. She wanted to go already, to storm off and demand news but the whims of a little girl didn't suit someone almost twenty now, no longer indulged the way a child had been.  
  
"I heard something about the mizzenmast needing repaired but," Marjani continued eating and talking, a hand waving as she chewed with Araceli taking the opportunity to scoot herself and her stool a few inches closer to bridge the gap, allowing new customers in and about them. Not that she minded if they listened but this said: no interruptions more plainly without being rude about it. Marjani burped quietly, covering her mouth with her hand, picking up where she'd left off. "I heard they had a slow leak needing patched too, might've been both, might've been neither, I wasn't about to pay for that gossip. You might if you've a mind to."  
  
"That sort of gossip doesn't pay well for me unless there's good reason, I'll already be paying for the news won't I?"  
  
"Don't you know the captain already?"  
  
"Not the new one, no, the last one retired while I was away with papa and we never got introduced. They might know me as Felix's girl but that doesn't hold weight the same."  
  
"True, true."  
  
Araceli tore the bread bowl lid into chunks, dropping them in to soften as she considered what to do as the people next to them ordered, chatting quietly amongst themselves with a polite murmur to her and Marjani, considering what to say as she tossed down crumbs to Lux when he batted the empty scallop shell against the leg of her stool, as plaintive a plea as she'd ever seen.   
  
"You could always offer them some dinner," Marjani suggested, a little smile on her face. "I don't mind being the taster if you need it. Speaking of—"  
  
"Speaking of?" Araceli lifted a brow, digging in again.  
  
"Never hurts to have a refresher lesson, does it? Far be it from me to suggest—"  
  
"No, no," Araceli interrupted, gesturing with her spoon as she swallowed quickly, wishing she'd thought to get a drink. Rude to swig from her own flask at a stall or that was her thinking. "Suggest away, you're the expert."  
  
"Oh who is truly the expert…" Marjani rolled her eyes, already freshly lined for the day in the habits sailors never seemed to leave behind even if her years at sea were behind her now, her shoulders joining in; that was how Marjani was, the beaded earring that Araceli could see bouncing with the motion.   
  
"You sound like mama."  
  
"She's right," Gláucia interrupted and their heads jerked up in unison as she sharpened an enormous cleaver with barely a glance. "Life is always a learning experience, the person who thinks they've learnt all there is to learn is a fool or worse, an arrogant fool."  
  
"Well put Gláucia. So, unless a girl has plans I volunteer for the _terrible_ hardship of tasting what she has to prepare for the captain of the Roving Gannet to get word of her father and to make her introductions on good footing and that pays us for a refresher lesson."  
  
"I can pick up everything I need before I head back now, I've coin enough for that, how's your dance card for tonight?"  
  
"So long as we're done by nine then I'm free."  
  
"Oh Marjani, what plans do you have?" Araceli couldn't help lowering her voice, wiggling both eyebrows and daring to nudge her teacher with her elbow as she did, trying not to laugh so as not to spoil the illusion she was trying to create.  
  
"Nothing salacious how dare you I am your _teacher_ Araceli Bonaventura y Castell, I could duel you for that."  
  
"You've let me away with worse and we both know it."  
  
"More fool me then, no, nothing as exciting as things young folk come sauntering home so late in the day from—"  
  
Araceli snorted, feeding Lux another morsel. "You're not dead Marjani."  
  
"No, but I'm past the point of scrambling out windows. I prefer to be sending them scrambling instead."  
  
Araceli laughed, almost choking then leant over to rest her head on Marjani's shoulder a moment. "I love you, you taught me so much of course of course we'll have dinner together tonight, shall we say seven for eating but come over sooner if you wish."  
  
"Of course," Marjani dropped a kiss close to Araceli's temple and rose, leaving a tip on the wooden counter as she lifted her bread bowl with her to finish on the way. "Seven at the very latest; Gláucia this was wonderful as always, good health to you."  
  
"And you Marjani."  
  
Araceli waved her teacher off, swallowing a yawn as she began to compose her own list for an unplanned dinner, her own coin joining Marjani's on the counter. "May your nets be ever full Gláucia."  
  
"And yours Araceli, word to your mother and father next you see them."  
  
"Certainly." Bread bowl in hand, Araceli nudged Lux to have him following her as she veered down close to the water's edge where the seabirds wheeled wildly overhead, tearing the softened remains into chunks that she tossed into the water with a murmur of thanks, bending to dip her hands in the salt water to clean them off. "Right little thief, come help me shop for dinner."


	5. Chapter 5

Rain fell when it would in Castileos, subject less to the prolonged dry seasons of Zimevur and Corundus or the predictable spring showers and heavier autumn downpours that Estene and Ebeos knew (Albas, land of ice, knew snows of different kinds, not rain in truth as the rest of the world did) and so the rain that drove against Araceli's window late in the night when she found herself tucked safely in her bed earlier than many other nights; Castilean rooftops in the districts she preferred to ply her trade were perilous even to someone with experience and it had been half-hearted at best. She tried to put it out of mind. Some nights were like that. Everyone had nights like that.  
  
Not _bad_ nights though they happened too, a whole multitude of them for whatever reason from bad information to the guards catching you to a poor haul or the weather catching you by surprise but tonight had—  
  
She huffed, rolling over in bed, dragging the blankets with her into a cocoon, Lux whining plaintively at her elbow when the movement jostled him from where he'd been tucked behind her knees so Araceli opened up a corner of the blanket graciously for him to scurry inside with her, a warm darting shape. She'd not bothered with the lights tonight once she'd done what was necessary. Settling himself with a satisfied little yawn that tapered up into a squeak, head tucked beneath her chin, Araceli scratched the hand not holding the blankets through his thick dark fur, closing her eyes to try to hurry sleep along. Maybe she was too used to clattering in as she did at odd hours. Maybe she was usually more tired than she found herself tonight though the restless was something else again.  
  
She huffed. Lux huffed back, out through his nose, a stray curl of hers bouncing with it.  
  
"Am I disturbing you?" She asked, voice soft in the dark though it was just the two of them, no one else to wake even if the walls of the building were perilously thin. Upstairs one of her neighbours was plucking a melody on a guitar, something low and longing that lodged under her ribs. "Sorry," she apologised, scratching behind his ears in the place that never ceased to have him closing his eyes in rapture.  
  
But it was already dark. And Lux rarely needed the invitation to sleep when he saw the opportunity. Her father had been right in handing her a fox all those years ago.  
  
Maybe that was all that it was. She always had an itch under her skin the closer it came to him arriving back in Castileos when he'd been gone a long time and certainly it had been more than half a year since she'd last seen his face. It was all well and good to be gone a long time at sea but when the word was scarce and the people that she knew to ask after didn't cross paths with him either, well, it put a girl to wondering. Marjani's suggestion to speak to a new captain was a good one, something she'd been lax with but it was easy, wasn't it? To coast on certain reputations that came before her when it was how so many people about the docks greeted her. Araceli, daughter of not just a Son or Bride of the Sea but both. Easy to just let that carry her. She sighed, stretching out, still pleasantly full from dinner with Marjani earlier in the evening. That had gone well at least because Marjani's opinion was to be trusted when it came to most everything and she'd been a pirate and sailor longer than Araceli had been alive, someone who _did_ know the captain of the Roving Gannet well enough to help guess what would go down well.  
  
(Not that any offering of food and something to drink ever went amiss, exactly, but it was better to have a second opinion with these things Araceli had learned.)  
  
She yawned at last, the stifled hot air under the blankets combined with Lux's steady breathing dragging her eyelids down. Tonight's worries were tonight's worries, if they remained in the morning like tangles in her hair and pillow creases on her cheek then she'd unpick and prod at them but for now Araceli listened to the rain drumming against her window, the faint lights from the harbour shining through the thin drapes, sails snapping as the wind picked up, ships straining against their moorings as she drifted off.  
  
 _A small girl sat at her mother's window, the sort who'd been tall for half a heartbeat until all the other girls and boys started outgrowing her, where even standing straight as she could or cheating and up on her toes she wasn't as tall, with her legs tucked up and under. Better to protect her toes from the cold. Outside the window that small girl saw the sea reach out for the moon, the whole of the sea with arms of crashing waves breaking under the weight of longing for what sat out of reach. Outside, if she looked up, she could see what the sea did too: the moon, that seafoam throne hard as pearl high in the sky and attended by all her glittering courtiers.  
  
That little girl, a much smaller Araceli, pressed her nose to frozen glass to better see both at once as the storm howled and dared to shake the windows even as far from the docks as they were.  
  
By all rights she shouldn't be able to see the waves from here and yet—  
  
Even here Araceli could see them. Could hear in the quiet of her mother's room the sails fighting to be hauled in by the hands left to attend to them lest they rip or tear, ships lashed in the harbour, caught in the struggle between the sea and the moon as he reached again and again, the moon where she was, turning slowly, slowly. White-tipped waters rose over the decks, even up and over the tops of the buildings. That must be why she could see and hear it this far in. The water was higher than Araceli had ever seen it, swallowing Castileos whole, ships sailing through waterways despite best efforts.  
  
She looked up. The moon smiled down at her, tail coiled about her throne and she smiled her mother's smile, swept serenely across the sky and the sea chased after her, the rush of her father's ambition and swept the ships after him, caught up in his wake, the water draining away.  
  
Hands caught her either side before she knew any better as her mother swept in, whisking a little girl away from a frozen window bearing an imprint of her tiny nose, ten tiny fingerprints, glass fogged from her breath despite best efforts to keep from steaming up the glass to see better.   
  
"It's time for little girls to be safely tucked in their beds," her mother said with a voice of ringed bells, softer and louder than the storm as if it hadn't touched her. Her mother's face was painted the way it had been when Araceli had been sat on the bed behind her watching her face in the mirror, brushes whispering over cheeks and eyelids, the other mother, the titled one, letters to her name.  
  
Kisses were dropped on Araceli's cheeks, forehead, the tip of her nose, all to make her giggle as she was scooped up and into her room again having crept from there on tiptoe, back into her bed but not before her feet were briskly rubbed between two soft palms so they couldn't say they'd ever been cold, her stuffed whale tucked safely next to her.  
  
"Mama-" she tried but she was tired, her eyes flickering.  
  
"Why is my little girl sneaking from her bed, I wonder? I tucked her in so long ago and then I come to check on her to find her out on such a stormy night." Her mother's loose curls trailed down to tickle Araceli's cheeks. The waves were still crashing outside, the rain hammering against the windows too; no one had drawn the thin lace curtains since it was always best to see by the light of the moon, to wake with the sun, and something to do with the heat she hadn't wrapped her head around yet but made sense, somewhere, curled content and distance.  
  
"The sea was trying to hold my hand mama," she said, swallowing a yawn, which wasn't what she'd meant to say and yet it was all the same.  
  
"Of course he did darling, the sea loves the moon so much he always wants to hold her." Her mother settled herself with the rustling of silk from the robe she wore tied loose at the waste, so very warm, smelling of salt spray and the oils for her hair she sometimes let Araceli use if she'd been especially good. Tonight her mother stretched out alongside Araceli on her little bed, pulling her into the cradle of her arms, Araceli's face tucked in the hollow of her throat without thinking, nestled safe and as sure as the maid had to be upon her seafoam throne of pearl.  
  
Somewhere her father was out on that sea, sailing home because of course he was, same as the compass pointed north, and Araceli's hands had reached out for him as the sea did the moon (and her, if what mama said was true) to pull him back, hauling in a line.   
  
"Did you know," her mother leant over to brush their noses together just so Araceli would giggle and squirm deeper into the blankets, "That before you were ever born you were a thief? You stole the hearts of an entire crew? It's true; I swear it here and now before the sea and moon." Outside the window Araceli had been sitting before she'd been swept into her mother's arms, into her cosy bed, the storm quelled for the span of just a heartbeat, listening close. "You were a speck of a thing, not even a pearl for me to cup in my hand then but your father's crew, the things they'd say that you were the ship come to life, a ship your grandmother had raised her son on too, a ship wanting a place in the world same as any of us."  
  
Araceli frowned, wrinkling up her nose. Her whale was clutched tight in her fists should she need to consult something so wise. "That—how does that work—did they mean the figurehead?" Little girls knew that figureheads saw more than anyone else on their ventures, ancient wisdom behind carved eyes and mouths that never uttered a worm.  
  
"No my darling, they meant that ship that has lived such lives you and I can only dream of."  
  
And Araceli tried – and kept trying, somehow she was sure she had already bent herself to this sort of study and would in the future too even as the world blurred about the edges – to picture what it was to be a figurehead on a ship. To see the world first, cutting through the waters but she couldn't. No one could. Instead she tucked herself closer to her mother who stroked careful fingers through her curls as if to coax them into order and not the rumpled mess they'd be come morning.   
  
The room swayed, rocked, the bed tilting; water was streaming in through the window and Araceli's mouth moved to say 'mama' but her mother was serene about it all and why would she be anything else? This was Castileos and her mother was a Bride of the Sea and had been longer than she'd been Araceli's mother, a bed floating even this high up was neither here nor there on an island that belonged to a nation of sailors. There was nothing to fear, there was never anything to fear. The sea would take his due in time.  
  
Somewhere, a bell tolled, a heavy sonorous note that resonated through Araceli's bones, one hand letting go of her whale to clutch tight to her mother's robe in a sweaty fist, twisting to peer out the window. Outside the moon was full and huge, white as bone, shiny as a newly minted silver coin, the waves cresting ever higher—  
  
A prow appeared by the window, knocked against it rat-a-tat-tat, her mother smiling and nudging Araceli.  
  
"It's for you."  
  
The water rose higher as the prow knocked the window opened, the water flooding in, covering Araceli and her mother's face as they took deep breaths and closed their eyes._  
  
Araceli woke with a groan, rolling over and scrambling to catch herself before she tipped herself, blankets and all, out of bed. Lux had worked himself free at some point in the night, likely too hot tucked up against her, and lay curled at the foot of the bed where he watched her sleepily, yawning hugely as she huffed and blinked the sleep from her eyes with a groan. The rain had stopped at some point before she'd woken up, still grey enough outside that without glancing at the clock she had no idea what time it was. Not that it mattered much, there weren't many things she had to do today outside of heading off to the docks to find the Roving Gannet and going out too early wasn't going to serve her well. The dream scratched at her as she took the blankets with her when she sat up and swung her legs over the bed, padding about to start getting ready by cracking open the window to air out the room; outside the air was still cool and the sky slate grey, a thick band of cloud hanging overhead that threatened more rain to come perhaps unless it was swept back out to sea.  
  
A good day to cook without the air becoming stifling and better for her to be able to take her time. _And maybe_ , she thought as she found a change of clothes that she didn't mind getting dirty – she'd need to do laundry soon as well, a small chance for easy gossip – while she worked, _it'll keep the questions in my head good and quiet too._  
  


* * *

  
  
True to Marjani's word, the Roving Gannet's mizzenmast was in a state of disrepair that was easy to see as Araceli and Lux made their way through the docks in the evening after the heat of the day had lifted. A mugginess had settled over Castileos with the rain never falling again but the damp of the air settling, a humid wet blanket that had made her thankful she hadn't had much to do though in the end she'd gone for a swim after her cooking efforts had turned her small flat into an unpleasantly sweaty furnace. Even now her hair was still pinned up and away from her face so it didn't cling damply to the back of her neck or to her forehead though even pinned tightly she was sure it was starting to puff and frizz out. Instead of trousers or a jacket she'd opted for a skirt and a shirt with sleeves that drew in at the elbows to at least try to not overheat; a sweaty mess wasn't the best sort of impression to make and who knew what the captain or any of the crew would take away from that if she ended up that way when they were talking, especially since she was going into it blind. She'd slipped out earlier, just while a few things simmered away to ask for the captain and it had been allowed, but that was about all she'd managed, not wanting to part with coin for information on short notice when there was even more chance it'd get back to her.  
  
Hopefully it wouldn't come back to bite her in the backside. But it was a simple thing. A girl asking after her father happened all the time. If she happened to be making her introduction on her own terms then that happened too. She had to take those steps eventually.  
  
A couple of deckhands were in the midst of a game of dice on the docks when she made her way up the gangplank, glances flicking her way as someone further up on the deck called out to her.  
  
"You got an appointment?"  
  
"I'm here to see your captain, I've brought dinner with me," she called back, lifting the dish in her hand just enough to be visible to the young man who nodded, waving her up.  
  
"Welcome aboard the Roving Gannet, he'll be in his cabin. This way." His accent and colouring placed him out of Estene or Ebeos, maybe the hazy boundary where the two nations overlapped with little touches of green to his attire that Araceli was used to seeing on sailors out of there who still liked to pay homage to their heritage and home. "What about your friend here?"  
  
"Lux," Araceli turned to the fox who'd been trotting at her heels the whole time. "Wait outside 'til I come get you, behave yourself." Then she looked back to the sailor as the fox trotted back to the deck. "He'll keep out of the way, just shoo him off if he's a problem."  
  
"I've seen him about before I think, don't see too many on Castileos, might make our dog have to pay a bit of attention he's been coasting on his laurels a while now." The young man – if he was more than ten years older than Araceli she'd be surprised – grinned at her, ducking out the way of a lantern. "Just this way," he said and knocked sharply on ornately carved doors, two krakens locked in combat, beaks of brass the handles that he twisted and opened at a call, jogging off and away.  
  
"Welcome to the Roving Gannet Miss Bonaventura y Castell."  
  
Captain Hernandez was a man of age with Marjani who sat with a leg slung over the arm of his chair, the windows open to let out the smoke of the cigarillo (the same as Araceli's father, she noted, she recognised the cloves lingering in the air) held loosely in his left hand as he waved for Araceli to take a seat across from him at a surprisingly large table. A Castilean through and through from the accent to his colouring to the casual way he settled himself at his ship surrounded by all the things that were his alone; his treasure trove same as fences had in The Orlop and Araceli couldn't help herself despite best efforts, eyes flitting about, mouth slightly agape.  
  
"Magnificent, isn't it?"  
  
She laughed, embarrassed to be caught as she stepped forward to set down their meal and take her seat, giving him a short nod as she found her words. "It's been a long time since I've seen a captain's cabin, let alone one that speaks to profitable voyages such as yours captain."  
  
"I'd have thought with your father you'd have been in and out enough to have the lustre wear off." He lifted the lid of the dish with a flourish, wafting the aroma of spices closer to him before he rose in the direction of what she guessed was his liquor cabinet. Or wine. Or both.   
  
With his back to her, it allowed Araceli the briefest of moments to wipe her sweaty palms on her skirt and check her upper lip but there was nothing there to worry about and soon enough she'd be eating and drinking, able to disguise anything by using a napkin. "Every cabin is unique, it speaks to the life of not only that captain but the ship and that crew," she replied, keeping her voice light.   
  
"The stories some of these things could tell…" A dark bottle in hand, the captain returned to the table. "Do you mind if I serve?"  
  
"But of course, this is your ship and this is for you captain."  
  
"Please, Raoul, we're not negotiating anything I think we can use first names it gets tiresome after a while."  
  
"I can only imagine."  
  
"It doesn't amongst thieves?"  
  
"Oh we don't have anything like that."  
  
Their meals plated, Raoul paused on his way to open whatever bottle he'd brought to the table, one immaculately plucked eyebrow raised. "You know, all these years and I thought that thieves had to have hierarchies the way we do on ships." He sounded almost disappointed as he opened it, a heavily spiced brandy filling the air to mingle with their meal and his cigarillo where it sat in a pretty little dish at his elbow. "Strange to know it's not the case."  
  
"Well in some outfits there are ranks but it wouldn't work if we had to give ourselves titles. We've got thieves, fences, forgers, you know the sort of roles we all need same as on ships but no singular captain. Doesn't work that way, I don't think it ever really could." She took a bite and it was as good as it had been for her and Marjani so hopefully he'd approve as much as her teacher had. "Maybe once we were all more like sailors and pirates but that would've been long ago."  
  
"And yet we do still find ourselves working together in our own ways." He took a bite, fork waving in the air as he chewed and swallowed. "This is wonderful, whoever taught you or if you taught yourself then truly, just fantastic, but thieves don't steal from us or work hard along the docks and we get good rates by the docks. I notice it more these days."  
  
"Thank you," she cast her eyes down – it was only polite to do so – and hid her smile behind her glass that she hadn't noticed him filling, a brandy rich and heady so it was a good thing they were eating. Still, she'd pace herself. Just to be safe. "I'll be sure to pass the compliments on to Abene; a teacher is always pleased to know their knowledge didn't go to waste."  
  
"You've had plenty, I'd wager."  
  
"Oh?" She lifted a brow, smiling at him over her glass. "You have me at a disadvantage Raoul, I don't know you as well as I'd like hence—" and she gestured to him with the glass in her hand as he grinned back at her.  
  
They both continued to eat in silence for a few minutes before Raoul wiped his mouth with a napkin, reclining comfortably in his seat to allow himself a better look at her which she allowed, finishing her mouthful as she waited for him to speak. "You'll be wanting to know about your father."  
  
"I won't insult either of us and lie; of course I want to know about him and word is that you passed his ship on your way home."  
  
Raoul nodded, picking up his fork again and Araceli did the same. It wasn't unlike a lesson only one Marjani might have set ahead of time where Araceli didn't know where she was to place her feet, if the sand would swallow one and have her struggling and she didn't hide the smile. She should have. But it was two people alone in a cabin, sometimes you were allowed to be proud and let it show in these moments. Or she thought so. Maybe she wouldn't later.   
  
"Well you didn't come coasting in like you might've on his coattails. Or your mother's. Or Marjani's, don't know how many years I've known Marjani now, she'd filet me if I tried to work it out in front of you." Raoul had a good laugh, Araceli decided, rich and deep and she knew Marjani well enough to agree with him there, almost choking when she mistimed a bite.   
  
"I didn't want to presume. There are ways of doing things. Even if I'd known you before you'd become captain I would've wanted to be introduced the right way. I don't keep as up to date with comings and goings with captains as I used to." That was lie, but not by much. She was aware in passing, you couldn't help but hear it but it wasn't her bread and butter as it would be to others though best not to let her father hear that one if only to stop him clutching his heart in anguish.  
  
Raoul nodded again as they both continued with their meal, the captain topping up his glass and offering the bottle to Araceli who refused, a hand set atop hers. "So, your father then. Thirsty work it'll be but Felix can still tell you the choice parts himself though I have a price."  
  
Araceli nodded, heart leaping though she'd expected as much. "Of course, name it."  
  
"Leave that recipe with me, I want it for myself and our cook."  
  
Araceli laughed, an easy sacrifice to make; food was life and the ship a Son of the Sea captained would find all the ingredients easily enough on their voyages. "If they're free I can do it before I head home tonight."  
  
"That's what I like to hear, now." Finishing his meal, Raoul pushed his plate away from him and swung both legs over the carved arm of his chair, a man comfortable with himself and his place. "Now, the Roving Gannet had been out by Corundus for most of our venture, always good work to be had there, I don't need to tell you that, but they've strong ships of their own and even moreso these days. Can't keep track of how they marry up and out elsewhere to get the wood for those ships."  
  
"You should try stealing some of their marriage charts," Araceli muttered with no effort in hiding the wince at a particularly messy night where she'd not been able to get home or anywhere close to it, cramped and miserable with only her racing heart for company and a leather-bound set of scrolls hugged tight to her chest, exhausted but too rattled to get any sleep, convinced that every sound was a guard coming for her. No muscle had been free from hurt the next morning.  
  
Raoul paused, eyeing her over his glass. "Profitable?"  
  
"No reason to do it if it's not but they're closely guarded affairs and one wrong move and people are trying to shoot you in the backside. That's part of the reason they're so profitable."  
  
"I think I'll keep us to our side of theft then, I'm sure the thieves of Castileos would be relieved to know."  
  
"I'll pass that along too next time I'm by the Orlop. You were out by Corundus?" She nudged just a little, not wanting to get off track, wondering where her father would come into it but unwilling to rush. You never rushed a captain telling a tale; least of all when he was holding court no matter how small the audience.  
  
"Corundus, yes, we were making good profit in and out and headed back when we had…a disagreement over ownership. These things can't be helped sometimes even if they should know how it all works in this world. A beautiful ship to be sure but not built for combat though she did have some smaller guns and struck just in the right place to hit the mizzenmast and that's what had us coming home sooner than I'd planned on. The sort of ship you send out to follow because we'd not spotted it and there were plans to sail on when suddenly there it is, this sleek thing. Would've made a fine prize had we the means but once they saw the situation they turned and left."  
  
"Was the other ship damaged?"  
  
"Would've been limping back to port I think from what I saw, damned fast little thing, and the way they manned those guns…" Raoul shook his head and took a long drink, a hand dragging over his face as if it wearied him to relive it. Araceli supposed it did – a battle at sea was no small thing, even when you only took minor damage, when the ship was your home and your life and she didn't know quite how long Raoul had been captaining the Roving Gannet either. That was something she should've pressed Marjani on but it was far too late for that now. "The crack in the mizzenmast wasn't too terrible at the time so we took it easy, decided to head home; we had enough that to be greedy would be pushing it and it was as we coasted past Ebeos that your father's ship came into view.  
  
"Naturally I hadn't seen Felix in too long so we pulled up alongside and I thought I should warn him if he was headed out by Corundus and didn't know, the only thing you can do for a friend, another Son, another Castilean – whatever you want to say. And Felix had some of his take a look at this ship but what can you do out at sea when it's the mast?" Raoul shrugged expansively and Araceli did likewise because for all that repairs were carried out, there were jobs that simply couldn't be done outside a real dock by the masters of their craft and that was all there was to it. "It was a good night though once we were done talking and the crews were, had the planks across, two tables spread out either ship and got some good bottles out. He'd been out by small islands people have claimed, again other stories are for him to tell you but he picked the ships from Ebeos."  
  
Araceli was quiet, counting the months back in her head as a slow smile curled across her face. "And he's due back…"  
  
"Inside a week or I'll eat my boots, I can't imagine what'd waylay him unless that storm gets swept out to sea and brews into something that forces him to turn about or wait but he's an old hand at it, he'd come right round and find a way to make it home when he wanted to."   
  
Inside a week! There were plenty of things that could delay him and she should be sensible, temper her excitement but the thought of the Sanguine Angler berthed alongside the Roving Gannet and others had the bubble of excitement swelling and rising. Even though it caught in her throat, she took a drink anyway, hiccupping when it burned on the way down. Raoul was favouring her with one of _those_ smiles that Ernesto had only been giving her side on for a year now and even then it was when he thought Araceli couldn't see him. A strange fondness that suited the fence but was out of place on the face of a man mostly a stranger to her who might have heard stories from her father. (Would have, she knew her father liked to talk about his favourite subjects at length whenever the opportunity arose and someone indulged him and Araceli had been on that list since she was little more than a twinkle in his eye.)  
  
The look was gone before she could even think about saying anything, a small measure of brandy filling her glass. For the best really, it wasn't as if it was her place to call him on it or had much that wouldn't have had her sounding foolish in front of him.  
  
"Surprised? He's been away about his usual spell." Raoul was amused, indulgently so but that was his place, his price, captain and the one to break the news, she couldn't expect him to be anything else when it came to this.  
  
"He only stopped, what, a day or two last time not including coming in and heading out again so it seems longer since I saw him last. And he can spend longer away. When he took me," she took another sip, "I think it was the better part of a year before we returned to Castileos."  
  
"Ah you wouldn't learn enough if he kept picking you up and dropping you off on short jaunts now would you? Best to dive in, get as involved as you can with it all for a proper voyage. Though," Raoul swung his legs down to fix Araceli with a look that held her in place as she kept her chin up to meet it, "I'm surprised you're not off sailing with him already. You're about that age most who've got it in their blood are on a crew, out on the open seas, making a name for themselves."  
  
"I don't want to trade off my father's reputation." Araceli replied, which was the truth and yet, as the words soured the aftertaste of the brandy in her mouth, _not_ at the same time. "Or my mother's," she added since Neria Castell was known well by Sons of the Sea too in her own right.  
  
Raoul nodded, rubbing a hand across his face. Weighing and measuring it no doubt as Araceli tried to settle herself back, wondering why she couldn't settle when it should all be so easy; true, he was a captain she didn't know but she knew how to talk to captains, she couldn't remember a time when she hadn't known how to talk to a captain. It was the sea. It was in her blood after all. _Sea-touched_ had been said more than once about her though never _to_ her because that was the way things went.  
  
"I suppose it's not any business of mine but if it's not serving aboard his ship…I can understand that. We want to step out of the shadows."  
  
"Thieves tend to work better in them," she pointed out as politely as she could and Raoul laughed thankfully, rising to his feet, the chair barely making a sound over the wood but these were beautiful appointments, he'd have done something to keep from marking up the floor of his cabin. "Come, let me take you on a tour and introduce you to my chef as is good and proper as captain and host, if I'm ever to tempt you…"  
  
And Araceli laughed, blaming the brandy she threw back for the way her stomach rocked as she rose to follow him.


End file.
